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Klarna’s vision to bridge the gap between “inspiration and transaction,” as CMO David Sandström puts it, is starting to become a reality now rather than later. Today, the company rolled out its first social-shopping tool, which connects online shoppers with retail employees through live messaging and video.
- The feature, called…Virtual Shopping, will be available to all of Klarna’s retail partners, which now total 400,000+ worldwide.
- It’s also a way to leverage the expertise of associates and demo products on the spot.
Version 2.0: “If the first wave of e-commerce was convenience, the second wave is going to be about personalization, humanization, and experiences,” Sandström told Retail Brew. “The e-commerce experience is very transactional, very rational, quite lonely, and boring when we’re serving customers.”
- More than three-quarters (78%) of US shoppers believe online retailers need to invest in new tech to create more personalized services, according to Klarna’s Shopping Pulse report.
Klarna said 300+ of its merchant partners have already been using the feature over the past few months. So far, it’s seen a 10x conversion rate on average, Sandström noted. Conversions are particularly higher in categories such as homeware, beauty, and luxury goods given the $$$ investment, added Adam Levene, director of social shopping at Klarna.
The big picture: The virtual shopping tool builds on Klarna’s acquisition of social-shopping platform Hero, for a reported $160 million, last year—as the company looks to move beyond BNPL.
- Sandström hinted that more social-shopping will be coming over the next year, but didn’t share specifics.
“This is really…part of the portfolio of creating a better marketplace. Buy now, pay later is one of those products—social shopping is another of those products,” he said.—KM