Streaming services and short-form video platforms are no longer used solely as a passive pastime for consuming media. These platforms have utilised ways to interact, share and spend money on brands that are promoted on their site.?
Services such as Netflix and TikTok aim to dominate the attention of consumers, especially in the millennial and Gen Z demographics. Now, these platforms are turning their attention to commerce, with the launch of retailer shops that are accessible through the sites.?
This trend reveals a border shift in consumer purchasing habits, changing the way people discover brands, make purchasing decisions and engage with products digitally.?
How These Platforms Turned to Retail?
In 2021, TikTok launched the TikTok Shop, where major and local businesses were able to sell their products directly through the site. For example, retailers such as Marks and Spencer, Sainsbury’s, Clarks, and more than 200,000 other independent businesses are selling their products?on this platform.
TikTok promotes these brands through ‘shoppable videos’, which promote products to viewers. Major influencers are paid to advertise brands through viral trends and skits that incorporate promotions throughout the video.?
Furthermore, Netflix has launched its own merchandise shop, titled the Netflix Shop, which sells licensed products from its own shows, such as Bridgerton, Stranger Things,?and Squid Game. This allows the site to capitalise on viral moments, as they are prepared with merch before their shows gain traction.?
Changing Consumer Habits – Instant Purchase Decisions??
This trend has helped shape consumer purchasing habits. Both of these platforms are built around an algorithm-driven discovery, which identifies patterns in consumers, so they know specific content to recommend.?
This has made advertising far more targeted, where people discover media and brands that they directly want to engage with. It correlates with a fast, reactive behaviour model. TikTok, specifically, thrives on short attention spans and making impulse decisions.??
Danielle Dullaghan, a social strategy director at IRIS, said that TikTok Shop’s success is the fact that “it plays directly into impulse buying behaviour”.
These behavioural shifts don’t just influence how platforms market towards consumers. They’re also closely watched by traders assessing short-term volatility via a CFD broker offering access to global markets, which are influenced by online consumer behaviour.
In consumers, attention is split across both short-form and long-form content. Gen Z specifically is dividing focus between many different platforms, and this changes how brands and advertisers have to promote themselves.?
Consumers now expect personalisation, interactivity and instant access in their entertainment. Over 43% of respondents to a consumer research study stated that elements such as polls and quizzes were an essential part of their media consumption. Livestreams have also become very popular amongst a Gen Z audience, with over 30% of respondents engaging with this type of content.?
These are the types of stats that platforms like Netflix and TikTok are utilising to find new, innovative ways to promote different products to their audiences.
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