Livestream Shopping Lessons From Qurate’s App, Sune – WWD

Last April, the Qurate Retail Group expanded its investment in livestreaming and video by launching Sune, an app intended to be experiential, entertaining and for discovering new products, brands and makers through livestreams and videos including live product drops.

It’s targeting younger audiences than those typically on Qurate’s QVC and HSN shopping platforms. Spotlighting mission-driven brands is also part of the strategy.

In the following Q&A, Brian Beitler, founder of Sune and general manager of Qurate’s Live Shop Ventures LLC, details early progress at Sune, what lies ahead, and presents his case for shopping via livestreaming and video. Previously, Beitler was chief marketing officer for QVC U.S. and HSN, and earlier J. Jill’s chief marketing and brand development officer.

WWD: What does the name Sune mean?

Brian Beitler: It’s a play on the word “soon.” People love to shop, so the early bird gets the worm. Shop early, shop soon, to get the best from these new and emerging brands. We also wanted something with a bit of catchiness and that we could trademark.

WWD: How would you characterize progress so far?

B.B.: We’re very much in the early stages. As we continue to onboard new customers, we want to learn and make sure we’ve got the format right, the creators right, and the brands in the assortment right. There are still elements of the app we’re building to enhance the experience — components on the seller and creator sides. What you largely see today is the experience that faces the consumer — Sune’s app platform, which brings live and recorded video to discover new products and new brands. But we will also enable creators and brands to (develop) content themselves, using our seller platform in the near future. We’re building this as a marketplace model where any seller will be able to create content and upload it onto the platform itself, which keeps Sune’s production costs down. Until we develop the rest of the platform and ecosystem, we consider ourselves in beta. We’ve had some sellers test that platform, but it’s not yet widely available.

Our intent is to emerge from beta as we roll into 2024, which is when we would anticipate increasing our investment from a marketing and customer acquisition perspective. We are advertising and marketing to get consumers onto the platform and shopping, and to gain data and insights to help fuel our personalization algorithms.

WWD: How has Sune performed so far?

B.B.: We have onboarded more than 300 unique brands and 85-plus are in the pipeline. Beyond beta, we hope to bring on 800-plus brands. Our downloads are right on pace. We continue to see week-over-week growth. We’re not sharing the specifics yet…We’re not just a start-up on its own. We are owned by the Qurate Retail Group which has set the pathway for video-based television and live-based commerce for almost four decades. That gives us credibility in our conversations with brand partners.

WWD: Who watches the videos?

B.B.: It’s Gen Z or young Millennials. Rising generations are not used to appointment television or appointment anything. They’re able to get everything they want on demand. Our vision was to build something that was super entertaining and could be shopping the moment. You could be standing on line at Starbucks, waiting for the subway or, candidly, bored sitting in class, and you just want to shop, which is different from going to the web to shop, which is what largely happens in the e-commerce space today. That’s terrific but only if you already know what you want to buy.

WWD: If younger generations are not appointment-oriented, wouldn’t that preclude livestreaming to some extent?

B.B.: I don’t think so. It just means for the consumer to make that appointment, you need a really good reason for going live, something meaningful or valuable. There is also an authenticity, a credibility and a realness to being live, which means the show is not going to be perfect. It’s not going to be edited. Much of that content is consumed after the fact on YouTube or any number of places. But what makes it so valuable and interesting is you know it was shot live. And generally we can capture the content on one take, which makes the production process a lot more efficient and cost-effective.

WWD: How much live programming versus pre-taping does Sune do?

B.B.: We go live every day, sometimes multiple times. But the vast majority of our content is viewed post-live, and much of our content is pre-recorded so it’s there when you want it.

WWD: People are already glued to their mobiles, on the subway, in the elevator, at Starbucks. Aren’t you just feeding into this avoidance of human interaction?

B.B.: The way I look at this mobile device and what it enables is the same way we might have looked at telephones 50 or 60 years ago, when parents told their kids to get off the phone and go next door to talk to their friends. In that moment, it felt like we were losing our connection. The truth is, telephones bridge connections. It’s the same truth with mobile devices. I have six kids from 13 to 29 years old. This device, as much as it’s potentially harmed them, it’s enabled their connections with one another, particularly as they’ve moved across the country. It enables how we connect with people across the globe, though there can be negative side effects from spending too much time on the device. But giving people the power to use something that’s at their fingertips in a way that brings them joy is the way that we think about this.

WWD: Will livestreaming become mainstream?

B.B.: Livestreaming today is where e-commerce was in 2001 or 2002. Coresight estimates in 2024 about $35 billion (in sales) will be (through livestreaming), which is small compared to overall digital commerce. Consumers are beginning to adopt. There are a few emerging players in this space and a lot of large brands that have looked at this, but aren’t quite sure. Are they all-in and down this pathway today the way we think they will be in a few years? Probably not.

WWD: Why do you think video/livestreaming is the next big thing?

B.B.: It’s not only the next best thing to being in person, it’s actually better because you can help somebody fully understand a product, particularly in certain categories — kitchen electrics, air fryers, products that can change how you prepare meals. You’re probably not going to see those demonstrated in a store and it’s hard to see and understand how it works on a flat product display page. Fashion, home, novelty, beauty, technology, these categories are all super demonstrable. Video is a super powerful way to understand these things.

WWD: What is Sune selling a lot of?

B.B.: It’s products that are solution-oriented and products where you can really see how they work. One of our most popular videos are slippers that can also be used to dust and mop a floor. It’s a really cool, novel product that has a use case to it. They’re washable.

WWD: With a niche product, like a slipper that doubles as a dust collector, do you get a sufficient return on your investment?

B.B.: A great product that can feel really niche, and has a really good use case can do really well. Also, our cost of creating content is very low.

WWD: What’s the criteria for selecting brands or products to livestream?

B.B.: The product has to be really useful to a consumer, good in the functional utility it provides. Is it designed well? Does the brand itself have a story behind it, or does it have a give-back component? Is it good for the environment? And lastly, is the price, the value proposition, good. We’re not chasing luxury price points right now. Maybe there’s a future there.

WWD: How are the opportunities at Sune different from QVC and HSN?

B.B: We realized as curators we had an opportunity with a much younger consumer and a much different screen type. Most (QVC and HSN) content is built for the living room screen or the laptop…Our purpose (with Sune) was to build something that’s really relevant for someone much younger with a lot of discretionary income that will be growing over the next 20 years. How can we build a platform and experience that connects with them and how they connect with video. Younger consumers connect with video very differently from their Gen X and Boomer parents.

WWD: The timing for launching Sune wasn’t ideal considering consumers are curtailing discretionary spending.

B.B.: That’s certainly fair at the macro level, but if you build a great experience, there’s still plenty of discretionary spending out there to take a meaningful share.

WWD: What are the top three challenges of livestreaming?

B.B.: The top challenges are determining your audience, telling brand and product stories the right way, and finding the right personality to tell the story.

WWD: Have any creators become repeat performers on Sune?

B.B.: We’ve identified 20. It’s based on engagement, the watch time. We continue to search for new voices that will become part of the platform. Our goal is to scale to where there are hundreds.