Walmart will kick off Cyber Week by making history with the first shoppable livestream on Twitter, set for Sunday (Nov. 28) at 7 p.m. and featuring singer and social media superstar Jason Derulo.
Customers can watch and shop via livestreams on Walmart’s website and its Twitter, Youtube, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok accounts. The stream, hosted by Derulo, will feature a 30-minute variety show highlighting electronics, home goods, apparel, surprise guests and more.
“I’m excited to bring customers incredible deals on a platform they already love during the most joyful shopping season of the year,” William White, chief marketing officer, Walmart U.S., said in a company blog post Monday (Nov. 22). “Twitter is a platform where we consistently see high return across top- and middle-of-funnel content, so it’s a natural next step for us to explore this new functionality.”
Throughout the holiday season, Walmart plans to host over 30 shoppable livestream events across eight social and media platforms, including BuyWith, BuzzFeed, Facebook, IGN, TalkShopLive, Tasty, Twitter and YouTube.
Walmart will have more than 30 shoppable livestream events across eight social and media platforms during the holiday season, including BuzzFeed, IGN, Tasty, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and more.
“Over the last year, we have been leading the way in social commerce by creating first-to-market experiences for our customers, doubling-down on shoppable content and accelerating our efforts around shoppable livestreams,” White wrote.
In December 2021, Walmart hosted its first shoppable livestream in partnership with TikTok, dubbed the Holiday Shop-Along Spectacular.
Since then, the corporation says it has tested 15 of these shoppable livestreams across five platforms, launched Walmart.com/live, and has worked with more than 20 creators and hosts.
Twitter also recently launched new business profile tools that allow retailers and other companies to display their hours of operations and website on their profile, and plans to enable product purchases from business profiles in the future.
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However, some merchants are looking to ease off their reliance on social media for livestreaming commerce — something that helped them grow in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Social commerce is expected to top $36 billion in the U.S. this year, according to eMarketer, but that pales in comparison to the sophistication of the concept in other regions. For example, digital purchases through social media channels in China are expected to surpass $351 billion.
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