Verb’s Lyvecom Deal Signals Shift to Brand-Owned Live Shopping

Verb Technology Company has acquired AI video commerce startup Lyvecom in a deal valued at up to $8.5 million. The buyout closed April 11 and will fold into its MARKET.live platform​. 

Company officials tout the integration as a way to “democratize social commerce,” letting brands host interactive shopping videos on their own sites and apps while simulcasting across social channels – all powered by artificial intelligence, and all under the brands’ direct control.

Livestream shopping, which blends live video with instant purchasing, has exploded in markets like China where it’s become a $512 billion phenomenon. In the U.S., adoption has been slower but is rapidly gaining traction. Major players including TikTok, Poshmark (acquired by Naver), and eBay have begun testing live shopping features to tap this growth​.

Yet the path in Western markets hasn’t been smooth. Instagram, for example, shut down its live shopping feature in March 2023 after modest results​. Even TikTok – widely seen as a contender to drive the trend – scaled back early live-commerce trials in the U.S. and Europe when initial pilots yielded meager sales​. 

Recent moves like TikTok’s new in-app shopping tools and startups such as TalkShopLive and Whatnot gaining traction suggest competition is intensifying in this space. Against this backdrop, Verb’s acquisition of Lyvecom underscores how brands are recalibrating their social commerce strategies.

1. Social media algorithms

A driving force behind this shift is “algorithm fatigue” – frustration with how social media algorithms limit organic reach and constantly change the rules of engagement​. Followers and viewers accumulated on a major platform ultimately belong to that platform, not the brand. This has pushed companies to seek more direct-to-consumer channels. 

Hosting streams on their own sites lets brands fully customize the experience and keep shoppers in their ecosystem – free from competitor ads or feed distractions – while turning the event into a goldmine of first-party customer data. 

2. Data ownership and privacy concerns

Consumers have grown wary of transacting directly on social platforms. Drut, Lyvecom Co-Founder and CEO Maxwell Drut, who will become Chief Technology Officer of Verb’s MARKET.live unit, notes that roughly 40% of consumers hesitate to buy via social media due to personal data worries. 

By integrating Lyvecom, Verb is pitching a solution that “gives power back to the brands” – enabling an omnichannel approach where companies retain full control over their audience, content and conversions, and shoppers engage directly with the brand wherever they feel most comfortable. 

Crucially, the system funnels customer insights (including so-called “zero-party” data that shoppers intentionally share) back to the brand’s own analytics rather than locking it inside Facebook or TikTok. 

3. AI-powered “shoppertainment”

Another angle of the Lyvecom deal is the emphasis on AI in e-commerce. Verb describes Lyvecom as an “AI-powered video commerce” platform and plans to leverage its tech to enhance MARKET.live with new features: AI-driven content automation, virtual live-shopping hosts, predictive analytics, to name a few. 

The company aims to offer brands a one-stop “shoppertainment” solution: they can broadcast across multiple channels with one click, reach audiences anywhere, and maintain a unified checkout and inventory system throughout​. 

For shoppers, it could mean more interactive and seamless buying experiences – imagine tuning into a product demo on a brand’s site or Instagram Live and being able to purchase in-stream without a clunky handoff. 

All in all, Verb’s MARKET.live will be competing in a crowded arena. It joins a cohort of platforms attempting to “democratize” social commerce by putting brands in the driver’s seat. Whether this model can crack the code of Western live shopping at scale remains to be seen. 

But as social media giants rethink their commerce strategies, the rise of brand-controlled livestreaming suggests the next chapter of online retail could look less like a centralized mall and more like a constellation of interactive storefronts.