At first glance, the future of live shopping may look bleak.

• Just this summer, in addition to Meta’s announcement that live shopping on Facebook would end in October, TikTok backed off from plans to expand livestream shopping capabilities to the US.
• Amazon, which launched live shopping in 2019, has found limited success as influencers have struggled to bring their social media followings to the platform.

If the titans of tech can’t do it, who can?

China, for one. According to estimates from Insider Intelligence, live streaming generated $300 billion by June 2021. But Vincent Yang, who co-founded live shopping platform Firework, is convinced live shopping will have its moment in the spotlight in the United States, too.

“Livestream e-commerce is a huge business in Asia, and purchases are almost universally conducted within the walled gardens of social sites like ByteDance-owned Douyin or Taobao,” Yang told Retail Brew via email.

• “But there’s a good reason for that: There are no other places to make purchases online in China.” Live shopping works well inside of an app in China, because “the open web doesn’t exist,” Yang added.

Live shopping winners: small businesses and Gen Z

Yang isn’t alone in his faith in live shopping—investors are on board too, and don’t seem to be deterred by Facebook’s change of heart.

• Live shopping “will be a part of the ‘omnichannel’ experience in retail,” XRC Labs partner Diana Melencio told Retail Brew via email. Today’s tech-enablement innovations enable companies to “create their own retail channel to interact and enable commerce directly,” she said.
• “The larger platforms pulling back, in my mind, creates more of an opportunity than anything else,” Brian O’Malley, a managing partner at Forerunner Ventures, which has several investments in the live shopping space.

Live shopping has a recipe for success. Keep reading for more.—MA

Labor is top of mind for retailers as inflation, inventory woes, and fears of a recession have forced them to rethink their workforces.

DTC shoe brand Allbirds laid off 23 employees, or 8% of its global workforce, toward the end of last month after looking at “roles and processes in each department,” the company told Retail Dive. Allbirds says it wants to streamline roles in preparation for its move into wholesale.

• Fellow DTC darling Warby Parker announced it slashed 63 corporate roles ahead of its Q2 earnings report. “We are making these changes to enable us to operate in a more focused and nimble manner,” the company said in a statement to Insider.

But layoffs are affecting major legacy brands, too:

• Walmart recently said it’s cutting 200 corporate roles, after issuing a profit warning to investors; it’s separately hiring in e-commerce, advertising, and supply chain.
• Victoria’s Secret quietly laid off 160 management executives, which will (allegedly) save the company about $40 million annually.
• Other major companies paring down workforces include Sweetgreen, Shopify, Beyond Meat, StockX, Glossier, and Gamestop.

The July jobs report revealed that 528,000 roles were added last month—including 22,000 retail positions. It’s not all bad news; there are now 208,000 more retail jobs than there were in February 2020.—KM

New poll data from decision intelligence company Morning Consult indicates that while buy online, pick up in store (BOPIS) might have peaked, there’s room for retailers to grow this omnichannel shopping model.

“The current demographic profile of BOPIS power users reveals which consumers retailers should target to grow usage of these services,” Claire Tassin, retail and e-commerce analyst at Morning Consult, wrote in a memo released August 11.

• Millennials, urban dwellers, and men are more likely to use in-store and curbside pickup options across all categories of goods.
• Tassin suggests that retailers struggling with accommodating BOPIS orders should prioritize floor space in urban stores, and target BOPIS messaging towards the “power users.”

BOPIS experienced meteoric growth during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, when browsing shelves surrounded by crowds of other eager shoppers was a no-go. But while that growth has slowed, it hasn’t deterred major retailers from leaning in.

• In August, Kohl’s announced a major expansion of its BOPIS offerings with “self-pickup” available for online orders at more than 1,100 stores around the country ahead of the busy holiday season.
• Both The Container Store and Ulta Beauty highlighted their BOPIS strategies in first quarter reports to investors earlier this year.

Morning Consult’s consumer surveys, which were conducted monthly between October 2021 and July 2022, indicate that convenience is shoppers’ top driver for BOPIS services.

“The BOPIS shopper profile is very similar to the profile of customers who demand faster delivery speeds from retailers,” Tassin wrote. “Surprisingly though, convenience is more important than speed to BOPIS users, meaning retailers need to make convenience, not fulfillment speed, their North Star.”

• Consumers also value the ability to control pickup timing—indicating retailers should prioritize consumer control on pickup windows, Tassin said.
• According to the report, consumer electronics is the only category where consumers choose BOPIS for speed over convenience.

Curbside and in-store pickup options maintain high customer satisfaction rates, but few consumers use BOPIS fulfillment consistently, Tassin added. “There’s substantial room to grow these services.”—MA

Today’s top retail reads.

Safety concerns: The Occupational Safety and Health Administration has launched an investigation after three Amazon warehouse workers in New Jersey died in the span of three weeks. (My Central Jersey)

Tag team: Shopify and Klayvio, an e-commerce marketing startup, are strengthening their partnership as more merchants look for new ways to boost sales. (Insider)

Missed the boat: Many brands in the fashion industry have invested in NFTs, but with the roller-coaster nature of the crypto market, is it too late to set up shop in the metaverse? (Glossy)

Learn: What if you could anticipate what a customer wants to buy before they even knew it? That’s the power of predictive analytics. Use data to forecast the future with the Brew’s Business Analytics Accelerator. The next cohort starts September 6, so apply today!

A reminder about Retail Brew’s newest debut: The Sku: A Retail Brew Summit. FOMO is real, friends.

Here’s what’s on the agenda:

• Meeting demand and maximizing profit
• Managing your organization across channels
• Creating omnichannel engagement with customer journeys
• Sustainability: who is doing what and how?
• Using technology to drive sales

Advanced pricing ends soon! Register now to save your seat (and some $$). Only $549 for a limited time!

The numbers you need to know.

Almost 90% of 2,210 US adults report reading or hearing some about inflation, with 60% saying they’ve heard “a lot” about it, according to recent Morning Consult research.

• That latter figure is in line with the 64% and 61% who said they’re “very concerned” about inflation and its impact on finances, respectively.
• With inflation being felt at the grocery store and the gas pump, it’s perhaps not surprising that 74% and 72% of respondents, respectively, say they’re “very concerned” about pricing in those two categories.

Morning Consult said that folks are delaying purchases, particularly for big-ticket items, like electronics.

• However, of the adults that have not yet limited expenses, 75% said they’d be willing to delay electronics purchases if inflation intensifies, which could affect the holiday shopping season.
• In addition to hunting for less expensive products, Morning Consult said consumers are clipping more coupons and more carefully comparing prices to make ends meet. Although, millennials are also less likely to cut back grocery spending than Gen Xers and baby boomers.

+1: Women are slightly “more worried” than men (65% versus 59%) about inflation’s impact on apparel. Even though women are more likely to say they’ve attempted to save money on clothing purchases, they still report spending more on the category than a year ago.

Catch up on the Retail Brew stories you may have missed.

• Payment experts break down which solutions will define luxury and fast fashion in the years to come
• Beyond Meat says plant-based meat sales are slowing as consumers opt for lower-priced protein
• GoFundMe fundraisers for groceries, baby formula, and gas are soaring