Powell, whose three Jennaration shops in Alabama were closed at the start of the pandemic, has put all her focus on selling through live videos, broadcasting live several times a week to 400 people who watch on Facebook or her store’s app. She puts on clothes from her shop, spins for the camera and tries to get viewers to buy.
“This top is a deal for $22!,” Powell says in a recent video about a leopard print sweater she’s wearing. “It’s just very, very well made, y’all!”
Livestream selling, already popular in China, is taking off in the U.S., ushering in a new way for Americans to shop online. Instead of searching for what they want, they pick up their phones, sit back, and click to buy if they like what they see.
This way of shopping is expected to ring up nearly $5 billion in sales this year, and reach $25 billion in 2023, according to retail data firm Coresight Research.
The pandemic is helping to fuel the boom. Business owners with closed stores have taken to livestreaming to sell animal print tops, heated eyelash curlers and just about anything else. They have a captive audience: Many Americans stuck at home with nowhere to go are looking for something to watch. At the same time, tech companies, including Facebook, Instagram and Amazon, have made it easy for businesses to livestream from their smartphones.
Continue reading your story on the app
Continue reading your story in the magazine
Q&A: BITCOIN'S MASSIVE RISE AND WHAT COMES NEXT
The digital currency Bitcoin rocketed to a record high last week above $40,000 a coin.
VOLKSWAGEN TRIPLES ELECTRIC CAR SALES AHEAD OF CLIMATE RULES
Europe’s push into electric cars is gathering speed — despite the pandemic.
UK INVESTIGATES GOOGLE'S PLAN TO REVAMP CHROME BROWSER
Britain’s competition watchdog said it launched an investigation into Google’s plan to overhaul its ad data system over worries it could leave even less room for rivals in the online ad industry.
RACE ON: THE LINEUP FOR THE REVOLUTION OF THE CAR INDUSTRY
Wherever you are in the world, it’s hard to deny that 2020 was a challenging year - not least the automotive sector. With car sales plummeting amidst stay-at-home orders, consumers had a chance to reflect on their environmental impact, and as a result, electric vehicles are now more desirable than ever.
SOME UBER, LYFT DRIVERS SUE OVER CALIFORNIA BALLOT MEASURE
Drivers for app-based ride-hailing and delivery services filed a lawsuit to overturn a California ballot initiative that makes them independent contractors instead of employees eligible for benefits and job protections.
TARGET CONTINUES TO THRIVE IN WHIRLWIND RETAIL ENVIRONMENT
Target’s strong sales streak extended through a pandemic-shrouded holiday season after a hard push online and an increased effort to provide alternatives to customers who are trying to minimize risk.
TIKTOK TIGHTENS PRIVACY FEATURES FOR YOUNGER USERS
A month after federal regulators ordered it to disclose how its practices affect children and teenagers, TikTok is tightening its privacy practices for the under-18 crowd.
NEW MERCEDES SCREEN TO STRETCH NEARLY FULL WIDTH OF CAR
Daimler’s Mercedes-Benz has unveiled a key interior component of its upcoming electric luxury sedan: a large, curved screen that sweeps across almost the entire width of the car in the place of a conventional dashboard.
ELECTRIC TRUCK MAKER HITS 100,000 ORDERS AHEAD OF FALL START
An upstart electric vehicle maker said that it now has more than 100,000 orders for its new pickup truck.
CHINA'S GEELY, BAIDU ANNOUNCE ELECTRIC CAR VENTURES
Chinese automaker Geely says it will form an electric car venture with tech giant Baidu, adding to a flurry of corporate tie-ups in the industry to share soaring technology development costs.
LiDAR MAPPING A GOLD MINE
When Consolidated Gold Mine in Dahlonega, Georgia, wanted to open more of its areas to public tours, they asked Inspired Intelligence, a family owned and operated drone business in Buford, Georgia, to help. Inspired Intelligence CEO and founder Nir Pe’er explained, “Besides drone technology, we also used new, amazing cutting-edge technology called LiDAR.
The Committee on Life and Death
As COVID-19 has overwhelmed hospitals, the lack of clear bioethical guidelines has meant that doctors have had to make wrenching life-and-death decisions on the fly. The result has been chaos and unnecessary suffering, among both patients and clinicians. As the country prepares to distribute vaccines, we’re at risk of reprising this chaos.
MATCHING INTERIOR MILLWORK
If one lacks professional expertise, installing crown moulding, replacing missing bits of casing or trim around windows, and retrofitting lost baseboards may be an exercise in frustration. Especially when nothing in an old house is square! First learn about the role of trimwork, building up profiles, turning corners with mitered and coped joints, and what tools to use where.
CREATIVE TOOLS
How four master builders defined the path of the 2021 BMW R 18
Powell Joins the Fed Pantheon
He’s being called the most transformative Fed chairman since Paul Volcker
The Prodigy
Yoyo Chang turned a hunch born in an English high school cafeteria into a next-generation payments app backed by serious, well-heeled investors
The Fintech Revolution Is Finally Here— And So Are the Regulators
SPEAKING IN OCTOBER to his banking brethren at the world’s biggest payments confab—the annual Sibos conference— Jamie Dimon didn’t mince words.
HOSPITALS CAN CARE FOR MEDICARE PATIENTS AT HOME IN PANDEMIC
Hospitals will be allowed to care for Medicare patients in their own homes during the pandemic under a government program announced Wednesday to help hospitals deal with the latest surge.
PFIZER: COVID-19 SHOT 95% EFFECTIVE, SEEKING CLEARANCE SOON
Pfizer said this week that new test results show its coronavirus vaccine is 95% effective, is safe and also protects older people most at risk of dying — the last data needed to seek emergency use of limited shot supplies as the catastrophic outbreak worsens across the globe.
SAL'S POLIKARPOV I-16
Valery Chkalov Red Five