With the rapid rise of shoppable video, AI-driven recommendations, and immersive technologies like AR and VR, are traditional e-commerce strategies becoming obsolete?
Today, we’re joined by Eitan Koter, Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Vimmi, a shoppable video SaaS company revolutionizing e-commerce. Eitan is also the host of the “Mastering eCommerce Marketing” podcast, where he shares insights from over two decades of experience in startups, public companies, and even a NASDAQ IPO. His deep understanding of e-commerce, technology, and entrepreneurship makes him the perfect guest to discuss how these worlds are converging to reshape the online shopping experience.
About Eitan Koter
Eitan Koter is the Co-founder and Co-CEO of Vimmi, a leading video commerce SaaS company providing multi-channel shoppable video and live shopping solutions to brands and retailers. With two decades of experience in startups and public companies, including a NASDAQ IPO, Eitan is a thought leader in video commerce, digital marketing, social commerce, and startup bootstrapping. He frequently speaks about futuristic immersive digital experiences and the convergence of media and commerce.
Resources
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Transcript
Greg Kihlstrom (00:01)
With the rapid rise of shoppable video, AI driven recommendations and immersive technologies like AR and VR, our traditional e-commerce strategies becoming obsolete. Today we’re joined by Aitin Cotter, co-founder and co-CEO of Vime, a shoppable video SaaS company revolutionizing e-commerce. Aitin is also the host of the Ecom Pulse podcast, where he shares insights from over two decades of experience in startups, public companies, even a NASDAQ IPO.
His deep understanding of e-commerce, technology, and entrepreneurship makes him the perfect guest to discuss how these worlds are converging to reshape the online shopping experience. Welcome to the show, Aiden.
Eitan Koter (01:30)
Thank you so much, Greg
Greg Kihlstrom (01:32)
Yeah, looking forward to talking about this with you and definitely, you know, with your experience here, I have a lot of insights to share. Before we dive into that though, why don’t we start with a little more about your background and your current role at Vimmi and you know, what inspired you to launch a shoppable video SaaS platform?
Eitan Koter (01:50)
Yeah. So I’m like almost two decades in the, let’s call it the broader video space, right? When I started, uh, we called this domain broadcast TV, right? TV station, satellite company, cable companies. And, you know, my CEO back then told me, you know, if you start in the video industry, there’s no way to go out to get out. Right. I mean, you’re going to stay here for the rest of your career. So it was really strange back then, but it was so, uh, right. Because video has evolved so much.
Obviously, today video is like everywhere and obviously used in marketing activities for brands and enterprises. But it also, we have like media and entertainment type of videos, educational video, training, and videos just like all over. I watched it scale from kind of a lean back, you know, living room type of experience to like being used in variety of business use cases as well. And obviously with the internet or with the rise of the internet is…
Video can be used also in variety of use cases as well on the business side of things. Video today is so much connected to marketing and business goals and the special version of interactive video, shoppable video, or live shopping video. And there are issues of augmented reality and virtual reality. And all this immersive commerce is something that’s really differentiated traditional product page with just a couple of pictures.
They’re really a more immersive experience which generates much more conversion rate, reduces cartabundance and create much more meaningful experience between brands and customers.
Greg Kihlstrom (03:22)
Great, yeah, so let’s dive in here. And you touched on this a little bit, but I wanna start with just the talking about shoppable video in general and kind of starting with the big picture. Why shoppable video? Why is it such a powerful tool for e-commerce? how is it changing the way that customers are shopping?
Eitan Koter (03:42)
Yeah, so shoppable video is this idea of making a checkout process from within the video. It’s an interactive type of video where data layers are integrated on top of the video player itself, let’s say from the consumer type experience, having the ability to click on variety of call to actions while they’re watching the video. That call to action can be a buy now button, which redirects them.
to a product page or to a checkout page for creating a checkout, what we call a video checkout. So you can watch a video, can be someone, a host or some kind of an influencer or content creators or someone from the brand itself, creating some type of content, we’re probably showcasing a product and you can actually click on a button to buy through that video player while you continue watching that video. Now what drives this shoppable video is the ability to of brands to start deploying conversion opportunity through video. So we know it’s so difficult to acquire new customers to your own website, right? Like five years ago, you were to spend advertising money on Facebook or Instagram or YouTube. You knew that you can five X, X, this ROI to make sure that you’re generating enough business. these days are gone, right? It’s so competitive. It’s so difficult. CPCs are increasing. And one of the things that I appreciate in marketing is through video for a few reasons. One, the social media networks are encouraging content creation, specifically video, because it keeps users more engaged and more time on their app. So algorithms are favoring videos. Second is that because of that fact that advertising costs is expensive. So a lot of brands are happy to sell and do some kind of a rev share with different channels like their marketplaces, social networks, publishers, in order to deploy video and sales opportunity with social media networks. So again, from that fact that it’s so expensive to bring customers to your own website. So social commerce is a huge trend that drives everything together. And the vehicle, the fuel for social commerce is video. So social commerce is going to be like an $8.5 trillion market in 2030.
It’s like booming all over. Think about the ability when we do this endless scrolling on TikTok or Instagram or YouTube or whatever. Then suddenly you see a video. That video can be organic, but it also can be promoted, but it gives you the ability to purchase and it uses a lot of data, a lot of insights and intelligence to make sure we give you the right product at the right times, just to increase the probability to convert. And it happens all over the place. happens. These interactive videos are happening on your own website as a brand.
but also on your own social channels. And just as a summary, just as a disguise, the few types of shoppable videos, one is these vertical short form videos that we all know from TikTok and Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts. We have also a longer form of video, which is more, I would say horizontal or 16 by nine type of video, which traditionally goes to YouTube. And we also have a live video, right? Those live events, but…
We call them live shopping event. It gives the host, there is a professional host showcasing product and gives users the ability to purchase like from within the show itself.
Greg Kihlstrom (06:54)
Got it. So it sounds like shoppable video maybe has had its origins in social commerce, you know, kind of that that area. But it sounds like it’s it’s still still there, but there’s other applications for it as well. So it’s kind of it’s it’s kind of gotten out of the bounds of, you know, purely social commerce, because you mentioned, you know, you can have videos on a website or other things like that. Is that is that kind of what’s happening?
Eitan Koter (07:16)
Exactly. It started by the way, this whole trend started in China, right? About five years ago where we have like professional hosts. This is their day job. just stand in front of a camera, selling products on the major super apps, right? Then the migration to the west started about four, three, four years ago. And the idea is that, okay, let’s start deploying these live shopping events on our own website and do some pre-marketing for that. is
what you need to do before the event, during the event, and after the event. So you would create these newsletters and try to promote this on social media. Hey, next week, Thursday, 8 PM, we have a half an hour show. We’re going to showcase our new products. Here is the coupon code, just building a FOMO towards these events. These events were traditionally shown on the website. Brands did it just to get the data because anyone who is just joining these events needs to sign up in order to use the chat, for example because this event has a chat system, so shoppers can ask questions and moderators can respond. But eventually, it has become so expensive to just encourage users to join. So we started with this multi-channel era where those events are distributed across definitely the customer, the brand’s website, but also on his own social media account. If he’s using influencers, then the influencers will show them. And in the video platform, we can push the event also on the influencer’s social account.
And by the way, if our customer is an offline retailer with traditional brick and mortar stores, we can also stream those events to digital signage or to like digital screens, in the shelves or in the retail space itself. So it’s really an omnichannel and multi-channel type of experience. And definitely with also inside the brand’s website. And sometimes we see if it’s done right, more than like 30 % or 50 % increase in conversion rates purchase during this event.
Greg Kihlstrom (09:05)
Are there, I mean, it seems like certain types of like products lend themselves very well to this, but are there, you know, are there specific industries that or, you know, brands that gravitate towards this? Does this apply to any, you know, any brand? Like how do you look at that?
Eitan Koter (09:21)
Great question, Greg. It started obviously with those, let’s say smaller products that you can showcase in a small screen, usually below $100 that within 30 seconds you can show like a transformation. So it’s usually, it started from cosmetics, right? Like before they are after the cream or the makeup, right? Then some probably fashion, right? And gadgets, right? These are where it started. But what happened with TikTok or we can call it the
TikTokification effect, right? That, and definitely since the launch of TikTok shop in the US and in some many other countries around the world, it started just to, and it happens so fast that almost every category is now available on TikTok and on Instagram Reels, on YouTube Shorts, because even like, know, high ticket items, even furniture, for example, you know, we have car dealers who are selling cars on TikTok.
like unbelievable that this halo effect, the TikTok and Instagram Reels and YouTube shorts has on the overall marketing of the business. And you can see like substantial increase in sales if it’s done right. The whole idea we shot from videos is to be authentic and to be consistent, right? And we teach customer to create content depending on the funnel of where they are in the overall marketing funnel and what steps they are It’s not just pushing, pushing product, it’s about creating educational content, marketing information. Cause if you are an unknown brand, no one wants to buy from you. You need to build some credibility and you need to build relationship through value you provide. And once your users are, knows you better, they’re more open to accept some kind of a proposal from you. And if it’s done right, it can achieve amazing results. And again, it’s a hundred percent organic, right? That’s the beauty of it, but it requires a commitment.
No one cares about backgrounds and all that stuff. People are looking for type of content and authenticity. And this creates a winning combination. Definitely if it’s done by the brand owners or the founders, which is what we call EGC, like employee generated content or founder led growth or founder led content. It’s the most, I would say effective marketing channel you can have today, which is like, doesn’t cost you anything. And the algorithm would just push you, but you need to be committed for at least two to three months to learn what’s working for you and how the algorithms is working for you and make sure that you adapt quickly and be agile based on data you received from the platform itself.
Greg Kihlstrom (11:48)
And so, know, for some, you know, simply adding the interactivity of the video, like that’s a huge, you know, that’s a game changer. You you mentioned some of the some of the increase in and click throughs and conversions. What about things like augmented reality, you know, VR and how are technologies like that transforming e-commerce? And, you know, are they?
Are they emerging still? there some things in practice today as well?
Eitan Koter (12:14)
Yes, obviously there are great examples of augmented reality. I mean, we see augmented reality all over, right? In our social apps, it’s very, it’s obvious that it is out there. And there are like great use cases about integrating augmented reality, for example, virtual trinons, right? And just check things in AR and it’s really, really helpful. And if it’s done right, the data shows that conversions are higher and customer loyalty are like dramatically higher.
Because of them, AR helps a lot with returns. In some of the niches, returns are like 50 % and above. It’s a really, really problematic number. so AR is vital just to maintain a healthy balance sheet and make sure that things are done right. VR and this type of, let’s call it again, social commerce. We talked about social commerce as a use case for shoppers to purchase online on social media networks. But social commerce is also the ability to purchase together.
with colleagues and with friends. Social purchasing, say, and social commerce and VR just gives this opportunity. think about a scenario where you go to a product page. It’s more of an immersive experience. It works on a regular browser. You don’t need special eyeglasses or anything of that sort, but it’s a group experience and you start traveling within a journey through some kind of a tunnel where you see a variety of digital shelves and you can enjoy the experience of the product from 360.
degrees and it’s much more immersive experience and like they’re like great greater use cases for creating sales opportunities right by the big you know LVMH I mean like the big brands like that they’re using this in a very very smart way and obviously these use cases like ARVR are 100 % more adopted today for training for custom support right to explain things faster and just to educate but they’re definitely they are part of
what we call the immersive commerce or V commerce. What’s coming ahead in terms of the way that product pages is going to showcase. And it’s definitely, I mean, we are the beginning of this age and this is definitely where it’s going.
Greg Kihlstrom (14:14)
Yeah, I mean, and that that idea, the immersive commerce, I mean, it sounds like it can take a few different or it can utilize a few different methods and stuff. But really, you know, our brands, is it only just, you know, a handful of brands that are really embracing this or, know, where where do you see? Are we still early days here? And you know, what’s kind of holding some of those companies back from more immersive commerce?
Eitan Koter (14:39)
Yeah, I think most brands, and as you know, let’s say brands are divided into like those big enterprises and you we have the small medium businesses and then you have like the solopreneurs, right? So I think like definitely solopreneurs, small medium businesses, they are so busy with trying to win more business, trying to launch Amazon, trying to launch TikTok shop. mean, these are like huge project. are still in the basic foundations of everything.
If you are like digital native just starting out today, yes, you can just bypass this and start immersive. This is what we try to teach our customers, build this video based e-commerce platform. This is something we do here at Vimeo. And the idea is to, from the get go, those product pages are like enriched with videos, encouraging brands to create videos, whether through their team or through content creators or influencers. But also there are so many AI tools, With like AI avatars and AI video creation and it’s moving so fast and it gives the ability to create much better experience. And obviously the big enterprise, because they have such a huge team, they have, for example, innovation teams and they have labs where they can test so many things. And usually there’s new and innovative ideas and technology starts from the big companies and this is where most of the effort is going. because it’s new, it’s still an experimentation work.
stage. Remember like virtual reality TV, which was like a big thing probably a decade ago. I mean, it was like all over the place, right? But how many of us are really watching VR, like 360 video VR on TVs, right? Right. More things is like purchasing from a big screen, right? So for example, CTV shopping, right? So obviously Netflix, Disney, all the these digital video services launched advertising packages, right? So, and there is an ability with a QR code even to check out. So we’re still experimenting purchasing on a big screen for a traditional media and entertainment type of experience where our mind is just moving to this reptilian mode, right? We have our remote control, two clicks, it’s like a lean back type of experience. And now, hey, we need to be leaning forward. We need to think and even engage and
Purchasing is a lean forward, it’s an engaging type of experience. So there’s a lot of psychological elements to this whole user experience and it’s still under investigation by a lot of companies just experimenting and trying variety of use cases and see what’s working and what’s not.
Greg Kihlstrom (17:05)
Yeah, yeah. And so you mentioned AI as a component of things. I wanted to talk a little bit about AI and its connection to personalization. Certainly in many areas of the business, personalization is key and can drive better results. Customers now expect personalization to some degree in their experiences.
From a video perspective, how does AI work to improve effectiveness of shoppable video and things like that?
Eitan Koter (17:34)
That’s a great question. Another great question, Craig. So mean, video gives us so much data, right? Compared to any text-based or even audio-based type of ad or post, because we know who are you, where are you watching from, on which device, when did you start, when did you stop, why you stopped, why your colleagues stopped. And this richness of data, just we take this to a big data lake and use a lot of AI to create really small decision about variety of business KPIs and also video KPIs. So in our system, for example, we give recommendation about length of the video, time of the day, when to post, what’s working better for you. Is it live? Is it short form? Is it long form? Even about the script itself. this is like gold. This type of information is super, super important. And through segment audience segmentation, we have the ability to create like messages and
just outreach through the platform to make sure that we are recommending the correct product and even the correct videos just to make sure that those clicks to convert are increasing. there is a lot of development in this space, not just from user data, right? And try to come up with a better ideas and better campaigns, but also AI as used for video creation, right? We see that, for example, picture-based, it’s very clear now with SOA and so many tools.
you know, video like text to video tools, right? And also just duplicating yourself as a host or as someone who is just creating videos in front of the camera, just this AI avatars, it gives you the ability to really most people will not identify even today, right? It’s just the beginning of this era. We’ll not be able to identify that this is an AI avatar in any way, right? So that’s so powerful in just multiplying reach and scale.
and capacity of this video throughput. It’s really amazing. And just to test things out and see what’s working, it’s so important because it’s really an organic free way to increase, to increase video today or to increase overall marketing performances in such a critical component of any, of any marketing plan. This AI and specifically video for AI, which was kind of a more complex type of creative, right? That is used through AI. It’s a great promise because
It’s not just helpful on these sales event or this promotion event, we’re through live or non-live, but it also great for just this customer support and just moving from an AI text-based bot to a video style type of bot. And just, you know, when you go to any website, there is someone who is accepting you and greeting you and you know it’s a bot, it will talk to you, get your questions answered. And when it says, hey, this is too much for me, it can direct you to a real person.
people are accepting this type of behavior and it’s going to become more more common. it’s really, the future is really exciting in that respect.
Greg Kihlstrom (20:21)
You know, to kind of circle back to the original topic, you know, I think we’ve got these these two things to balance. So we’ve got, kind of the origins of like social commerce was like a person showing, you know, kind of a personal a personal message, which obviously resonated resonates and resonated with a lot of people. And then we’ve got the incredible effectiveness of A.I. to be able to personalize and scale and all these kinds of things.
What’s your advice for a brand that’s trying to reconcile, know, how do they try to find the right balance? The balance may be different for different brands depending on a million criteria, but like, how should they think about finding that right balance between the personal and the automated?
Eitan Koter (21:02)
Yeah. So first personal and automated is obviously the right way to go. And this is what’s, what’s winning, right? It’s an organic or a good combination of just give first having this mentality, right? Provide value first and then find opportunities to sell through, some special ideas like joining a loyalty program, coupon code, special promotions and all AI is definitely should be part of the
of the plan, by the way, not just for the BD production itself, but also generating content ideas, try to probe for customer sentiment, for pains, for gains, for opportunities, just creating these topics of ideas about what content and what type of content to create. So that’s also very, very important. It’s okay for having this probably more product-based or just showcasing features, no face, right? Just discussing and…
just branded videos, it’s also fine, but having the right combination of authenticity, which is so super, super important because this is what differentiates by the way today between brands, right? So having the ability to, for the brand owner or for the executives and some members of the team to get this holistic marketing effect, think about the brand where you see, you know, members of their marketing team or member of their three PLO operation or inventory team. And even the CEO is saying something, this holistic
messaging that comes from all over is very, very, very powerful. we teach anyone can do that, right? We teach people, users, brands how to do that, how to create that list of content ideas, how to start standing in front of a camera and just be there and show yourself. I understand that it’s not for everyone, but with AI and AI avatar, it’s so easy just to duplicate this effect. I think that
You know, no CEO, VP marketing or CMO in the job description, there is an item, hey, you need to create content, right? But I think it’s the first line, right? You have to have the experience. But if you create content, you just put yourself, just you differentiating yourself from the rest. You can provide so much value to the company that you work for and you’re building your own tribe or community, which is another aspect of video creation. I just create a community. mean, foster.
foster a space for connection and dialogue. And this is definitely true for Gen Z. I if your brand just approaching Gen Z, so you must work on TikTok and you must foster this community type of activities, support and a cause, right? So align your brand with values that matter, right? So stand for something meaningful. Definitely work with creators, which is another very, very effective form of marketing. You can debate if…
Facebook ads or Instagram ads are worth it. Definitely on, if you’re on Amazon and Amazon ads, mean, it’s very, competitive and it’s probably a game starting to be a game of the big players. They can either high budget for that, but if you go authentic videos, if you go creator based, you, you know, foster some kind of a community building and you focus on just being genuine and true to yourself. So this is like free advice and free actionable light tasks that
anyone can do and all the networks are favoring it and definitely to this new generation of buyers that are just coming over right now all over the place.
Greg Kihlstrom (24:07)
Yeah. So looking out a few months, few years, maybe even, you what are you keeping an eye on, you know, as far as innovations and e-commerce? What’s, you know, what’s what’s top of mind for you right now? Maybe not ready for prime time, but like that’s that’s worth keeping an eye on.
Eitan Koter (24:24)
Yes, I see again, taking personalization to the next level in every aspect of the funnel. Not even, you know, the web page itself, the product itself can, the product page itself can be personalized. The checkout experience, even if you are on a brand website, right? How it can’t be one size fits all, right? We need to learn from data what’s working and customize this experience to everyone, like the entire experience, right? From just lead generation to
Even those just customized these landing pages, which can adapt automatically. Definitely the ability for web pages to be more immersive using this video and interactive videos as we spoke before, just making video more scalable, more adapted in a variety of organization. Definitely with the use of AI. yeah, personalization is a big topic. see more more like more than 90 % of companies are already using video in their marketing. So this will…
expand to more type of videos, which are more immersive or more live videos or more interactive type of videos. And what drives everything is this social commerce, you know, big boom, because social commerce is something that no one can ignore. Most of the brands are building their own shops in those variety of networks and it will continue to evolve. Like, for example, we see new brands, the first thing that you do usually as a brand, you’re building kind of a Shopify.
store, try to sell, but no, we see brands that just the first thing that they do is just launching their own TikTok shop. And then in TikTok shop, can, have the affiliate marketplace. You just find a few affiliates, you gift the product to them. Doesn’t cost you anything. It costs you on the rev share, right? Sometimes even it can cost you up to even 35 or 40%. But you start with no cost, right? Just gifting or seeding these products and you start selling and TikTok will take care about you in your entire fulfillment experience.
Similar to Amazon. Definitely this is what’s happening in Asia. In Asia, most of the companies, most of the brands are starting out on TikTok because you can build an amazing Shopify store, but no one knows about it. But if you launch your store, your shop on TikTok, take your big, bring your customers because of using this affiliate marketplace, which just expanding the reach of your network. Yeah. So definitely these are the key trends that I see personalization, use of AI and social commerce.
Greg Kihlstrom (26:38)
Great, great. Well, thanks so much for all of your insights. One last question for you before we wrap up. I’d to ask this to everybody. What do you do to stay agile in your role, and how do you find a way to do it consistently?
Eitan Koter (26:50)
Okay, great. Yeah. So work-life balance is very, very important. I mean, for me, I learned that just prioritizing things is the most important thing and just keep time and space to do things that you like. So I’m all into mountain biking, so I ride a lot. I’m also on the holistic side of things where I’m a Qigong certified teacher. So I do a variety of Chinese meditation practices and try to keep balance, right, and space for everything. And when I work, it’s like total focus and I know when to stop and when to do some other things. It’s very, important to have the right team to build this kind of a culture in the company. This is something that we are really, really proud of in Vimmi.
