Video: Spree Integrates eCommerce and Live Streaming
Tim: I've got with me today Gregrian Vassell, who's the founder of Spree. Tell us a little bit about Spree, and what exactly it is. I remember at Streaming Media West, several of the guys from Wowza had us do a live announcement for GoCoder, and you all were the winner of that.
Gregrian: Yes, I'm the co-founder and CTO of Spree, and as you mentioned Tim, we won the GoCoder Coding Challenge last time at Streaming Media East. Spree is a live shopping app that basically allow users to shop their style influencer's look. The way it works is that we have a user, say Ashley. Ashley goes live from Venice Beach, and Ashley's talking about what she's wearing, talking about her experience at Venice Beach, and basically a couple hundred of her followers logged into the livestream and basically see what she's wearing.
They are obsessed about her jean shorts that she's wearing, and basically with a few tap of the finger along with Apple Pay, they can easily purchase that product. Once they purchase that product, say for example from Ashley, and Ashley gets the charge from Barneys, New York, Barneys basically send those buyers the order in the mail.
Tim: Okay, interesting. So you're using video as a way to drive the means of eCommerce?
Gregrian: Exactly, livestream, yeah.
Tim: Okay, so how does the shopping cart integrate into the livestream?
Gregrian: We reviewed how complicated it was actually to get people to shop and use shopping carts, and I think basically the stat is 60% of shopping carts are abandoned online, at least 60%. And what we're trying to do, if you try to abandon that shopping cart concept, the online shopping cart concept, and basically once you buy a product you instantaneously purchase that product. There is no need for a shopping cart.
Tim: Almost like the single click with Amazon, where--
Gregrian: Yeah, exactly.
Tim: It essentially doesn't even go to a shopping cart, it just goes right into the order.
Gregrian: Exactly.
Tim: And then Apple Pay, you said, is where--
Gregrian: Yeah we use Apple Pay, so the registration process is very simple. We can actually log into Spree with your current social media login, and along with Apple Pay you can purchase a product, so there's no need for you to enter your billing information or payment information, everything is done via Apple Pay.
Tim: Very good. So you're going to be on a panel of mine a little bit later today where we're talking about user experience. What was it, from Wowza's standpoint do you think that appealed to them about the fact that you're taking what's sort of a geeky thing, an API, and you're turning it into a user experience that ties livestreaming and shopping together?
Gregrian: Yeah, and I think my co-founder was the one that basically came up with this idea about shopping on a live stream. Basically the research that he has actually performed made it seem that it's extremely difficult for users to easily see something that they like on social media and purchase it. There are several different methods out there, and one method would be for someone to see something, for example, on Instagram, and they use a third-party tool. So once you like that image in Instagram it will send you an email, and you would have to go into your email and go to the different merchant's website, and enter information every single time to purchase that product.
Now what we aim to do is to make the interaction from the interest all the way to the final purchase process a very simple process.
Tim: So essentially you're removing multiple steps, and there are actions that people might have to take that may lead them not to do it if they get distracted doing something else.
Gregrian: And one thing that we implement too is, it's very easy for you to actually buy something while you're watching the livestream, so you don't really have to leave the livestream environment for you to purchase something.
Tim: Okay, awesome. Gregrian, thank you for your time.
Related Articles
Luke Watson of Roker Labs and Streaming Media's Tim Siglin discuss emerging social media platforms for live video, interactivity, and user engagement in this interview from Streaming Media East 2017.
03 Jun 2017
Companies and Suppliers Mentioned