Our BuyItLive Streaming Sale option gives sellers the ability to stream live videos to Facebook directly from BuyItLive. Streaming from BuyItLive provides you added control over live sales, maximizing your opportunities to earn revenue.
Use screen overlays to show product codes and info hands-free. View claims and purchases in real-time so you never miss a beat. All of this and more is possible with BuyItLive Streaming.
Setting up a Live Stream
To set up a live stream, select the “Live Sale” button on your store’s home page.
Name your sale
The name of your sale will allow you to differentiate between your sales. It will be seen by BuyItLive customer service, on your storefront, and on your Facebook post unless you edit the automatically generated description.
Select your sale type
You’ll want to toggle on BuyItLive Streaming in order to use the overlay and additional features that come with our Live Streaming option.
Select Shipping Options
BuyItLive lets store owners choose between providing shipping and requiring customers to pick up their orders, or allow for both. Customers will select the option they want while they’re checking out.
To configure your shipping settings, click on “Settings” from the main page and then select “Shipping” (tab number 2). For more info, view our article on Shipping.
Select Products for your Sale
Here you decide which products will be included in this sale. If you want to include everything in your inventory, then select “All Products.” If you want to pick and choose products, then select “Choose Products.” From here a dropdown menu will appear, allowing you to choose which products to include.
You can manually scroll and select products from your list of items or search the product names in the search bar. Click on the “Collections” button to scroll through products one collection at a time. As you select products, they will show up in a list directly below. You can also select “Use All Products In This Collection” to add an entire collection to your sale.
Hit “Reset” to remove all selected products and start over. Click on the check mark next to each added product to remove them one at a time.
If you check the box next to “Make the first item the Default Item for the sale,” then that item will automatically show up in the cart of every customer who clicks on your checkout link.
Sale Timer Options
From here you will be able to set how long items can stay in the checkout queue. The default time is 60 minutes, but you can select anywhere between 2 minutes and 5 days. If a shopper’s timer runs out, the products in their cart are removed, leaving the next person in line a chance to claim them. Shoppers with an expired shopping cart will receive an email inviting them to “Restore Your Expired Shopping Cart.”
With a live sale, the timer begins once the live video is over. Feel free to take as much time as you want on camera – no one will be losing their carts
Other Sale Options
The final section of setting up your sale includes four boxes you choose to check or leave unchecked. You cannot edit this section during a live sale.
Show All Available Products While Live (For comment sales)
Checking this box will ensure that once a customer enters their cart during your live sale, they can add any products you’ve included in this sale. If you want to capitalize on viewer engagement, then leaving this box unchecked may benefit you as it forces customers to watch your live sale to hear product codes and add them to their cart. Once your live sale is complete, customers will be able to view all available products by following the link in your post description.
Should We Notify Your Customers When Your Video Goes Live?
If this box is checked, registered customers will be notified via email when you go live.
Private Sale – Invite Only
If you select this option, customers can only access your sale via a direct link.
BuyItLive Channel Only
This setting is only used with the BuyItLive Streaming Sale option. If you want to stream to the BuyItLive page alone instead of to Facebook as well, you can select that option here.
Page Selection
Before going live, you’ll want to choose which Facebook page you want to stream to. Once you have, you’re ready to go live! BuyItLive will stream the video to the pages/groups you selected all at the same time.
Live Control Panel
After your live video has started, you’ll stay on one page so you have access to the Live Control Panel during your sale. There are a lot of useful tools on this page. The Live Control Panel allows you to:
- Manage your live video
- Manage products
- View the Buy Queue
- See orders as they’re placed
- See comments from shoppers
We explain each of these aspects of the Live Control Panel below. It’s a good idea to use a device separate from the one you go live from so you can use all of these tools without needed to move your camera.
Manage Your Live Video
During your live video, the Live Control Panel will show your video so you know what shoppers are seeing. You’ll also be able to see comments made via Facebook or the shopper view of the Streaming Channel.
Once you’re ready to end your video, you’ll click on the stop button in the button left corner. You start and end the live stream from the same page. If you exit out of the browser or the tab with your live stream, you will be warned that your video will end.
Manage Products
The Inventory tab will automatically be the first tab open during your live stream. This is how you’ll publish products, show products on the screen, and edit product info if needed. You’ll also be able to see product info that will be helpful to know during your sale, such as product codes, names, prices, and quantities.
When streaming a live sale, you’ll need to publish products to make them available to purchase. You can publish products as you go, or you can publish them before you go live. Publishing a product does three things:
- Adds it to the screen overlay as the current active product on the video
- Makes it available to purchase, so comments to claim will be recognized
- Adds it to the page so shoppers watching the sale from within BuyItLive can click “Claim” to add it to their carts
After you publish a product, its status will change from “Inactive” to “Active.” When a product is active, that means it’s currently being shown on the screen overlay. Once you publish something new, the original product will change from “Active” to “Published.” This means the item is available to purchase, but isn’t being shown on the screen overlay anymore.
If you click “Unpublish” next to a product, its status will change to “Inactive” and the product will no longer be available to purchase. This won’t remove the item from shoppers’ carts who already claimed it, but it will prevent anyone else from claiming it. …?
If you ever need to show a previous product on the screen overlay again, just click on the eye icon to the right of its status. Whichever item has the bright orange eye is the item currently on the screen overlay.
Additional Features
Additional features are coming soon! As they do, we’ll continue updating this article.