Telesales are returning, but now on social networks – Repubblica.it

I grew up when there were telesales. Our Netflix were dozens of local TV stations whose highlight, even from the point of view of profit, were these marathons in which some very skilled salesmen, whom some called barkers, managed to sell everything live. There was always a set of cookware or a set of cutlery you suddenly wanted to buy.Vanna Marchi (who was later convicted of fraud) was perhaps the most famous; but in my schedule a gentleman beat her with a voice called Baffo due to his thick black mustache. It looks like prehistory compared to today where everything is digital, immaterial, often elegant, and instead that world is returning. They call it "shoppertainment", the union of shopping with entertainment.
From the technological point of view it is the combination of two things that we know well: the personal livestreaming, that is the possibility for anyone to go live video on a social platform; and e-commerce, or the online purchase, with a click, with free home delivery the next day. The phenomenon started at the beginning of 2019 and is already spreading.The most obvious signs are in China where there are 200 livestreaming sites and about 200 million users. On the occasion of the November Singles Day (which is their Black Friday), the influencer Kim Kardashian has sold 15 thousand bottles of perfume live to its nine million local followers in just a few minutes. But even without having hired a stellar influencer, that day the car manufacturer JMC sold 55 cars in one second with the same technique.

The thing concerns us since on Facebook Live and even more in the Instagram Stories is taking hold. But there are several dozens of startups that aim to provide the services needed to make direct sales via video easy even with show elements, such as quizzes with prizes. Just a mobile phone and a good connection. It works, they say, because it returns a human touch to the impersonal coldness of online shopping. It works, I add, because it's like telesales when I was a kid.