Social commerce, specifically, live selling emerged as a popular and vital sales channel, providing customers with an exciting and interactive shopping experience. SHOPLINE offers the native Live Shopping sales channel that can be integrated with Facebook and Instagram with just one click. You only need to specify keywords for products to be sold from your SHOPLINE admin panel, and then the system sends the checkout link to customers for purchase when they leave comments in your Facebook or Instagram livestreams that match the specified keywords.
In This Article
- Adding the Live Shopping Channel
- Integrating with Facebook and Instagram
- Creating Livestreams
- Adding Products for Sale in the Livestream
- Connecting Livestreams to the Platforms
- When Customers Watch Your Livestream
Adding the Live Shopping Channel
You need to enable the Live Shopping channel before you can sell products through livestreams.
- From your SHOPLINE admin panel, click Channels or the plus sign (+) next to it in the left pane.
- In the Add sales channel pop-up window, find Live Shopping and click the plus sign (+) to add this sales channel.
Integrating with Facebook and Instagram
You need to integrate with Facebook and Instagram before you can create a livestream. Let’s take Facebook as an example.
- Go to the Facebook sales channel, and click Setup in the Community marketing section.
- Click Link now in the Facebook Fanpage Account section to complete integration with Facebook. Click Link now in the Instagram account section to complete integration with Instagram.
- After the integration is complete, the integrated account will be displayed in the corresponding section.
Creating Livestreams
- Go to the Live Shopping channel, and click Get started.
- The Create livestream pop-up window opens. Choose a platform from the available channels. Let’s take Facebook for example. Click Confirm to proceed. You will see the Connect with Facebook or Connect with Instagram button if you haven’t completed the integration with Facebook and Instagram, respectively.
- Configure your livestream, including Stream name, Basic settings, Send checkout reminder, Warming up (optional), and Information settings (optional). Once finished, click Create to initiate the livestream.
Below, we are going to show you how to configure these settings.
Basic settings
Order settings
It indicates your expected settlement mode. You can choose Only draft order or Only shopping cart.
In the Only draft order mode, the product in the customer's comment is added to the draft order for quick checkout. In the Only shopping cart mode, the product in the customer's comment is added to the shopping cart, and the customer can check out the product with other products from the store.
- The Only shopping cart mode: No settings are supported yet.
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The Only draft order mode:
- Reserved products: When this setting is turned on, you need to set the end time for reserving the products. When the customer leaves comments to place an order, the product will be reserved until the specified time.
- Combine orders from multiple stream studios: When this setting is turned on, if the customer leaves comments in one or more of your livestreams, these products will be combined to the same draft order ID. When the draft order ID is paid and converted into an order, all livestreams with this setting enabled will generate the draft order again and complete subsequent product additions.
- Customer can edit product quantity in the checkout page: When this setting is turned on, customers can adjust the number of products on the checkout page. Please note that this function does not support determining the maximum purchase quantity of each person, and overselling may occur.
- Scheduled order: When this setting is turned on, you need to set the time for placing orders. When the configured time is reached, the system will search for unpaid draft orders of the customer and automatically generate open orders.
Keyword Rule
Keywords are at the core of how live shopping is made. When customers leave comments in your livestreams that match the specified keywords, the system creates orders and sends the checkout link to customers for purchase.
First, specify how you want your customers to leave keywords in their comments in Ordering by in-message keywords. There are 3 keyword formats:
- Comments include [keyword] and/or [keyword + no.]: Let’s say the keyword is A1, then when you select this format, comments such as "I want to buy A1" or "I want to buy A1 +5" are both identified. The system knows that the quantity as "1" for the first comment and "5" for the second comment.
- Comments can only be [keyword] or [keyword + no]: When you select this format, customers need to leave the exact comments as “A1” or “A1 +5.” If the comments include any other text, the identification fails.
- Comments can only be [keyword + no]: When you select this format, customers need to specify both the keyword and quantity in their comments, such as “A1 +5,” or the identification fails.
Next, specify how many of a product will be added to the order in Keyword and order quantity. There are 2 quantity options:
- If you select Cumulative, then when the customer leaves multiple comments containing the same keyword on a livestream, the sum of the quantities in the comments will be the final quantity.
- If you select Latest comment, then when the customer leaves multiple comments containing the same keyword on a livestream, the quantity from the last comment will be the final quantity.
Finally, specify how you want the keywords to take effect before and after the livestream in Keyword status.
- Preparing to go live:
- Auto-validate all keywords: The keyword status is Enabled by default when all products are added to the livestream.
- Validate keywords manually: The keyword status is Disabled by default when all products are added to the livestream.
- When the livestream ends::
- Keep keywords available and open for adjustment: When the livestream ends, the status of all keywords remains the same. For example, if keywords were enabled when the livestream went live, they are still enabled after the livestream. You can choose to manually disable them..
- Turn off all keywords but open for adjustment: When the livestream is ended, the status of all keywords is changed to Disabled. You can choose to manually enable them.
Comment Settings
Comments of all customers are displayed in your livestream, and any customers can view the comments. You can choose whether to hide livestream comments by enabling the Hide comments of livestream setting. If you turn it on, you will be asked to configure Hide channels and Hide comments.
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Hide channels:
- Hide comments of all fan pages: The system will hide comments for all fan pages that your livestream is synchronized to.
- Hide comments of specific fan page: Only comments from the specified fan pages are hidden.
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Hide comments:
- Hide all comments: All comments from customers are hidden.
- Hide comments with phone number: Only customer comments containing phone numbers will be hidden.
Send checkout reminder
- Send checkout reminder messages: To complete their checkout, you can send notifications to customers who have placed orders but have not checked out yet. If this setting is turned on, you are asked to specify the time when the system will automatically send checkout reminders if the customer needs to complete the checkout.
Warming up (optional)
- Will be live at: The time when your livestream will start. If you want to notify your fans of the start of your livestream, specify the livestream start time and select the Target group.
- Message body: The warming-up welcome message when the livestream starts. provide this information if you want to warm up the livestream before starting it.
- Button name: The name of the CTA button in the message you send.
- When to send: The time you expect to send messages.
Information settings (optional)
- Welcome message: The welcome message is displayed when a customer enters the livestream.
- Post-order: The system sends the order checkout information to customers when their comments match keywords. The customer can complete the checkout through this message.
- Details on add order failure: Failed order messages are sent to your customers if none of their ordered products is successfully added to the order. For more information, refer to Sending Failed Order Messages.
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Recommendations: When you recommend a product in the livestream, the product information is sent to the livestream room. Provide this information If you want customers to see the information of specified products on the livestream screen.
Adding Products for Sale in the Livestream
Once you finish the creation of the livestream, the livestream studio opens. The studio is the mission control center for your livestream. There are 4 tabs: Livestream, Message Management, Product sales, and Settings. In the Livestream tab, you decide your featured products, control your livestream program, and get to know everything happening in your livestream. To get details about the customer comments and sales performance, go to the Message Management and Product sales tab. If you need to change the configuration of your livestream, head to the Settings tab. and you can proceed to add products for the livestream.
Before you start your livestream, let’s first add some products. The products for livestream sales are those you want to sell through the livestream. You need to specify keywords for each product. If customers leave comments in your livestream that match any keyword you specified, the system will create a draft order and send a message to remind the customer of payment.
- Go to the Livestream tab, select Products to sell in the live stream in the middle pane, and click Add a product. If you already have products in your store, you can click the Select product(s) button to choose products for livestream sales. Click Add at the bottom of the pop-up window once finished. If you do not have products in your store, you can click the Create a product button to add products, and then add them to the livestream.
- The Edit keywords pop-up window opens. Specify 1 to 3 keywords for each product. You can specify keywords as needed, but the keywords can’t be the same. Keywords can be generated in the following ways:
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- You can type keywords in the text boxes. If you don’t want to type the keywords for each variant of a product, you can turn on the Edit keywords based on SPU toggle. Then you only have to provide the keyword for the SPU, and the system will generate keywords for the variants by adding the spec name after the keyword (for example, “DN, L“). Please note that once it is turned on, the Quick generate button is unavailable.
- You can click the Quick generate button in the upper right corner to generate keywords for all products with one click.
- To create custom keywords for easier management or identification, you can select products and click the Add custom keywords button, then define the prefix and suffix. These selected products will have the same prefix for their keyword, and the system automatically assigns them with numbers for identification. Check Specification name if you want the system to automatically add the variant/specification name as the suffix for each product. Once finished, click Complete.
- You can type keywords in the text boxes. If you don’t want to type the keywords for each variant of a product, you can turn on the Edit keywords based on SPU toggle. Then you only have to provide the keyword for the SPU, and the system will generate keywords for the variants by adding the spec name after the keyword (for example, “DN, L“). Please note that once it is turned on, the Quick generate button is unavailable.
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- Once finished, choose Join.
Connecting Livestreams to the Platforms
Once everything is ready, you choose how you want to initiate your livestream.
- In the livestream studio, click Connect to the live stream in the upper right corner.
- The Select livestream mode pop-up window opens. Choose Create a livestream or Connect to livestream to initiate live streaming.
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- Create a livestream: You directly initiate the livestream from the SHOPLINE livestream studio. After the livestream is initiated, it will also be initiated on the connected Facebook page. It is suitable for livestreaming using the PC.
- Connect to livestream: After you initiate a livestream on Facebook, you can associate it with the created SHOPLINE livestream. It is suitable for livestreaming using mobile devices.
- Your livestream is ready. Share your livestream link with your customers. When the customer’s comments match the product keywords, the system will automatically complete the product addition and send the checkout link to the customer.
When Customers Watch Your Livestream
- When the customer leaves comments in your livestream that contain product keywords, the system automatically sends a Messenger message to the customer for purchase.
- The customer receives the message in Messenger and clicks the checkout button to complete the payment.
- Orders for which the customers have just completed payment are listed on the Message Management tab.
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