25-06-2025
10 Reasons Live Shopping Is Driving E-Commerce Growth In 2025
As the world grows more digitally connected, e-commerce is evolving fast, and live commerce is leading the charge. By turning passive browsing into real-time engagement, selling via livestream gives brands a direct line to their audience, combining product education with urgency, authenticity and social proof.
Regardless of the platform, live commerce is shortening the path to purchase and driving conversions in ways static content can't. Below, Forbes Agency Council members share what makes this fast-rising format so effective and how forward-thinking brands are using it to build trust and boost sales.
1. Creates Urgency And Sparks Faster Decision-Making
Social media's growing influence creates another platform for brands to reach diverse demographics, fueling a surge in live commerce popularity. By blending product demonstrations with instant Q&As and social proof, live commerce helps customers make faster, more confident purchase decisions. The real-time format creates urgency, making it easier to spark action and drive higher conversion rates. - Shane Savage, PATHOS
2. Combines Entertainment With Instant Buying Power
Live commerce is surging because it blends entertainment with instant buying power. For e-commerce brands, the big win is real-time engagement. Customers can ask questions, get answers, interact with product creators and brand ambassadors and make purchases on the spot. It builds trust, speeds up the path to conversion, personalizes the buying process and helps marketers get closer to peer-to-peer marketing. - Mary Ann O'Brien, OBI Creative
3. Taps Into Emotional Buying Behaviors
Humans will always lead with emotion and justify with logic—livestream commerce is built on that truth. It transforms products into performances, rewarding presence with access, surprise and speed. For e-commerce brands, it's more than selling—it's staging moments that feel urgent, intimate and alive. When commerce becomes theater, emotion leads and function follows, and that's what sells. - Shanna Apitz, Hunt Adkins
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4. Drives Real-Time, Two-Way Engagement
Live commerce is booming globally as consumers crave interactive, real-time engagement with brands. For e-commerce companies, livestreaming builds trust and drives higher conversion by turning passive viewers into active, emotionally connected buyers. - Jessica Hawthorne-Castro, Hawthorne Advertising
5. Helps Brands Break Through Traditional Ad Noise
Audiences are used to the traditional forms of advertising, such as banners, brand placements and so on. Brands—especially those in the fiercely competitive e-commerce environment—need to think outside the box to stand out. Real-time interactions like live streaming go beyond traditional approaches by fostering deep connections and building trust in a brand and its product. - Michael Kuzminov, HypeFactory
6. Recreates Excitement And Social Proof Of Teleshopping
Live commerce thrives for the same reasons teleshopping did in the 1980s: excitement, real-time social proof and community engagement. It is highly effective, as it drives impulse purchases, bolstered by social proof, grows conversions and cuts return rates. E-commerce brands can leverage live commerce as a component of their brand awareness campaigns, amplifying reach and deepening loyalty. - Oksana Matviichuk, OM Strategic Forecasting
7. Creates A Stronger Sense Of Human Connection
People are craving connection these days. The digital life has brought so much connection to our lives, but it feels—almost counterintuitively—isolating. The overwhelming amount of digital information coming at us leads to experiences feeling transactional—the opposite of connection. Live commerce is a great way to create deeper connections with customers that break through the transaction. - Talie Smith, Smith & Connors
8. Reduces Buyer Hesitation By Addressing Questions
Addressing questions from a live audience is hard to beat and can lead to reduced buyer friction. Viewers can ask questions in real time about quality, use cases, pricing and so on—and if one person is asking a question, you can bet that several others have the same one. Plus, viewers know that when you're live, there is no editing taking place, and this builds trust like nothing else. - Bernard May, National Positions
9. Strengthens Emotional Bonds; Cuts Cart Abandonment
Live commerce capitalizes on parasocial relationships between hosts and viewers, creating an emotional investment that traditional e-commerce lacks. The biggest benefit is reduced cart abandonment. Real-time demonstrations eliminate purchase hesitation while social validation from other viewers reinforces buying decisions instantly. - Vaibhav Kakkar, Digital Web Solutions
10. Humanizes Brands Through Personal Interactions
People connect to people—this is just a fact. In this rapidly connected world, often driven by AI-powered communications, human-centricity is simply a brand differentiator. We all connect to stories, to narrative and to visual media, and we appreciate personal anecdotes. Personal recommendations are much more influential than algorithmically generated suggestions. - Goran Paun, ArtVersion
