10 Top Tips for Live Sellers: How to Increase Online Sales and Engagement

Live selling is one of the fastest-growing trends in video commerce. Whether you're hosting TikTok live shopping, Facebook live shopping, or Instagram live, your goal is to increase ecommerce sales, boost engagement, and reduce cart abandonment. But how do you stand out and turn viewers into buyers?

We’ve been working in the live selling industry for over 30 years, and here are some of our 10 top tips to help you optimize your live selling strategy and convert viewers into customers:

1. Choose the Right Live Shopping Platform

As you most likely know, each platform caters to different audiences. If you're selling fashion or beauty products, TikTok may be ideal for you. If you sell home goods or electronics, Facebook live and YouTube live is likely to be better. Find out where your customers spend the most time!

2. Plan Your Live Selling Strategy

Something I learned and always value, is that a strong live commerce strategy includes:
Scheduling streams at peak times - when are the best times to sell? I will be getting into that later! Promoting your livestream shopping sessions in advance through your usual marketing channels. Creating a script in advance with key talking points can be useful - but, can also be a distraction.

3. Create a Strong Hook to Capture Attention

The first 30 seconds of your live stream are critical! Engage your audience immediately with a powerful question or an important statement, Although story-telling is key, we all have short attention spans, so get to the point quickly! If you have a “reveal”, or an amazing “demo”, get to this early on, because trying to build anticipation or suspense doesn’t work. Trust me, I’ve seen it all.

4. Engage Your Audience in Real Time

Interaction is key to live shopping engagement. Use Q&A sessions, a quiz, voting, polls, give-aways, flash sales with limited-time discounts. Have a countdown clock running. Create a sense or urgency. But be honest - authenticity is key to building trust and engagement.

The more engaged your audience is, the more likely they are to buy during your live shopping session.

5. Show, Don’t Just Tell

Live shopping isn’t about reading product descriptions—it’s about demonstrating your products in action! Show close-ups, highlight features, and answer customer questions instantly. My experience tells me that this is one of the keys to lowering your cart abandonment rate.

6. Create a Sense of Urgency

One of the biggest benefits of live video shopping is FOMO (Fear of Missing Out). Boost sales with Limited-time discounts - but be honest about it, Exclusive live-only offers - but be honest about it, Early access to new products - but be honest about it.

7. Optimize Your Live Selling Setup

Make your livestream selling look professional with bright, flattering lighting, clear audio with a quality microphone and a stable camera setup with engaging visuals. If your audience cannot see or hear you, they won’t buy from you. Your customers are more likely to trust you if they can see your eyes.

8. Promote Your Live Shopping Event in Advance

More viewers mean higher engagement rates and better conversion rates. Use social media countdowns, email marketing campaigns and teasers on your website.

9. Analyze Your Live Selling Metrics

Track your average engagement rate, cart abandonment rates, and conversion rates after each session. This helps you refine your strategy and increase online sales over time.

10. Stay Consistent and Keep Improving

Live shopping success doesn’t happen overnight! Commit to hosting livestream selling events regularly. The more you go live, for example once per week, the better your live selling conversion rates will become!

Boost Your Live Selling Success Today!

Now that you have these expert tips, it's time to take action! Want to improve your live selling strategy and increase eCommerce sales?

Subscribe to our Newsletter, the Live Sell Edit for regular updates in live selling for small businesses, and consider investing in live selling coaching to optimize your engagement, reduce cart abandonment and scale your business for growth. Click the link if you would like to check out our coaching packages.