How to Make a Shoppable Video for eCommerce

If a picture is worth a thousand words, then a video is worth 1.8 million! Video marketing has ushered in a whole new era that metamorphosizes ‘seeing’ a product into ‘experiencing’ the product. And, as the customer transitions from a mere spectator into a participant, businesses seek new opportunities to upgrade the buyer’s journey into its richer and more immersive counterpart.

Shoppable videos are set to become all the rage in eCommerce. But what are shoppable videos and how can you create shoppable videos for eCommerce? 

Shoppable video combines the four Ps of marketing – product, price, place, and promotion – and presents it in an interactive and entertaining way, containing embedded links that allow viewers to engage with the product in real time. 

Typically, these links will. expands into a pop-up that offers a preview of the product specifications and price. And in some cases, they may even facilitate the checkout process without the viewer being redirected from the video! 

Shoppable videos are designed to compress the sales cycle and perform everything, from outreach to nurturing to engagement to sales, over a single medium that expedites action. This seamless, integrated, and convenient buyer’s journey appeals greatly to customers, making it the holy grail of content marketing. In other words, it makes buyers and sellers happy!

As the eCommerce sector becomes saturated, businesses are being pressed to incorporate innovation as a differentiator, and shoppable videos can be a great way to make your brand or business stand out. Here are some of the remarkable benefits associated with shoppable videos:

It is an established fact that the public distaste towards blatant marketing and advertising is at an all-time high. But shoppable video masks these objectives under the guise of entertainment, which means that viewers will be more receptive to your content. Plus, it also helps that about 54% of consumers wish to see more videos from the brands they support. Shoppable videos can be a smart way to soft-sell your products, regardless of which stage of the marketing funnel your customers are at. 

More than 50% of internet users check out product videos before going ahead with a purchase. As such, videos bear a direct link with the intent to purchase. 

With shoppable videos, businesses can take this connection one step further – audiences can learn about the product, discover more, add products to the cart, or bookmark it for later reference, with zero drop-offs. This straightforward funnel directly correlating with the product makes the buyer’s experience simpler and watertight.

An eCommerce website’s average conversion rate stands at 2.86%. However, it is believed that merchants that use shoppable videos witness a 30% uplift in conversion rates! This trend makes sense, as shoppable videos educate the user on the product’s usability. Moreover, it allows them to view the product in action or observe it in its natural setting. As a result, shoppable videos inspire purchases rather than forcing them.

Like every form of content, shoppable videos are highly transparent when it comes to performance measurement and tracking. Businesses can track video marketing KPIs such as the number of views, impressions, and other outreach parameters while monitoring engagement metrics such as clicks on embedded links, sales parameters, and eCommerce metrics such as cart value, ROI, etc.

The interactive element of shoppable video makes it more effective and engaging than its passive counterpart, which simply requires the viewer to consume content. It’s almost like comparing a book with a scripted plot versus one that allows you to choose your own adventure. This active audience involvement makes shoppable videos more engaging, whether you place them on your eCommerce store’s landing page or your social media platforms. 

While regular videos are compatible with almost all websites, shoppable videos are restricted to a few channels.

Amazon Live is the live streaming limb of the eCommerce giant, which allows brands to engage with customers through shoppable videos. The built-in live creator app empowers businesses to create and manage interactive live streams that educate viewers about the product. Further, businesses can leverage it as a platform to amplify the reach of their products – after all, it’s Amazon.

Instagram has consolidated itself as one of the leading social media platforms focused on visual content. And since 2018, the platform has been making headway towards shoppable posts that allow buyers to complete their purchases without exiting the platform. 

So, why not use shoppable videos to sell on Instagram? At present, you can only tag a maximum of five products per shoppable video. However, the amount of exposure one can gain through the platform far outweighs this limitation.

TikTok has been one of the fastest-growing video-based social media platforms since 2019, and the fact that it allows shoppable videos has further incentivized this growth. To generate more conversions and engagement, you need to know the best time to post on TikTok. Buyers can click on the shoppable video’s product pin to directly add an item to their cart and then proceed to the checkout.

2020 marked an exciting time for YouTube as it embraced the trend of shoppable videos. Such videos display browsable images of the featured products right below the advertisement. However, to harness this feature, your business has to be synced with the Google Merchant Center feed to allow viewers to redirect to your website.

The following is a step-by-step breakdown of how to create shoppable videos for eCommerce.

At the crux of it all, a shoppable video is essentially a regular video with interactive elements superimposed over it. As such, the first stage of creating a shoppable video requires – you guessed it – creating a video. 

Needless to say, this video needs to be creative and engaging. It should weave in the storytelling component with the featured product, and allow the product shots to linger in order to incorporate the shoppable elements. Also, make sure to focus on only a select few products rather than overwhelming your audience with more elements than what they can process. Follow such best practices of developing video content, and you will be starting off on the right foot. If you don’t have time to shoot all the footage yourself, Envato Elements has a tonne of stock footage to choose from.

The next stage requires uploading the video on a shoppable video platform. Ensure you make an informed decision using the guidance above to select the most suitable one for your eCommerce website. 

Here is where the magic of interaction comes in. Once your video is uploaded on the shoppable video platform, identify the focus areas in which to add the hotspots. These hotspot elements will serve as the clickable component and inform the viewer that they can interact with the video. The hotspot buttons can feature your brand logo or classic CTAs like ‘Click to Shop’ or ‘Click to Know More.’ 

Once the hotspots are in place, you need to create the overlay. Depending on the shoppable video objectives, these overlays can display product information, allow shoppers to add the item to the cart, proceed to checkout, redirect to store, bookmark the item, or more. Edit, review, and refine the shoppable video to the best of your abilities, and only proceed to the next stage once you are truly satisfied with the outcome.

Now that the shoppable video is fresh off the press, it’s time to let the world view your amazing creation! As with any shoppable video, start with the obvious places – your eCommerce website, the product landing page, social media, and more. You can even schedule the video on YouTube, Instagram, or other platforms mentioned above to save time. Once the video is published, find other ways to distribute it across different channels.

Shoppable videos are essentially product videos on marketing steroids. From Ted Baker to United Colors of Benetton, various retail brands are hopping aboard this latest marketing trend to a bouquet of benefits. And given their success with this format, every eCommerce brand should follow suit. So, are you ready to make shoppable video an integral part of your strategy for 2022? Better get a movie on!

Dipen Visavadiya is a result-driven SEO Specialist with 7+ years of experience. He has experienced increasing organic traffic from 10K to 100K in just six months. Besides SEO, Dipen is passionate about the use of technology to build professional relationships with people.