Now, buy Nykaa's beauty products while watching its make-up videos

The 'watch and buy' feature allows customers to add products to bag in real time, eliminating the need to search for the products after the video is over

In it’s continued efforts to drive sales online, beauty retailer Nykaa has introduced a new feature on its videos called ‘watch and buy’. The new feature allows viewers of Nykaa’s videos on social media platforms, and on the Nykaa mobile app, to add products to their shopping carts in real time. The users are provided with the option to checkout with the selected products once the video is over. 

“Live streaming is emerging as a powerful medium of communication. Since its launch, the live streaming service has had over 2 million views. Live videos are the next best thing to face-to-face conversations. Introducing this feature has been a great tech enablement that has helped us connect directly with users in real time to enable experiential shopping,” said Anil Kumar, VP – Technology, Nykaa.com.

The functionality is built on app native functions with rich interactive features. Other key features of this new implement include live streaming of Nykaa's Facebook Live on its app. Users can now also browse through archived videos (previous FB lives). 

The retailer has released 24 such videos so far. The insight for the feature came from the fact that while make-up videos and tutorials are useful in engaging the community through digital, they do not always translate into sales, since viewers may not want to go through the process of remembering the products, then finding them on the app, and finally ordering them. Also, this feature ensures that the customer is directed to the Nykaa site for the final purchase, as opposed to the customer searching for the product which leads to the possibility of him/her making the purchase at another online destination.

The feature has seen a success ratio of 40 per cent, Anil Kumar reveals. “It propels customers to make impulse purchases. It is not about pushing them to buy but is delivering a real-time experience wherein a customer can shop a product while seeing its uses in real time. We have noticed an average of 40 per cent add-to-bag through this feature. Going away from the video and searching for those particular products actually never happens. Only customers who are highly engaged would actually search for products after watching a video. And, we have eliminated this additional step through this implement,” Kumar says.

While there are videos on YouTube that show a panel of related products that can be bought, Nykaa's feature is native to it's app. So instead of depending on the YouTube algorithm to identify related products in select videos, all videos on the app will have this feature, allowing viewers to add the specific products used in the video to their shopping bags on the app. For brands, this is yet another below the line marketing option as they can collaborate with Nykaa to produce content, which could eventually lead to sales.

For example, in a recent Live makeup artist Namrata Soni's ‘Day To Night Festive Look Masterclass’, Nykaa’s Beauty Book collaborated with the brand Faces Canada to create a classic festive look that could be tweaked into a contemporary look with just a few changes. While makeup artist Soni demonstrated the look in the live video, viewers could add the products used in the video to their online shopping bag.

“In the e-commerce space this has come as an innovation. Nykaa has always had a great focus on the content and the experts section for the customers, and somewhere that has helped us move into this direction. We always had the content - be it beauty articles or expert advice that connects well with the customers,” adds Kumar.