Swedish payment company Klarna and Cosmo cooperate to start online live shopping

Klarna , a Swedish payment company that provides buy now, pay later services to 90 million consumers worldwide, recently announced that it will launch a live shopping event. Klarna will cooperate with Cosmo to hold its first online sales event at Macy's Herald Square flagship store in the United States.

Klarna, which helps cash-strapped customers finance purchases by paying for them over time without interest, has become an alternative to credit cards among young shoppers and is working to create a modern version of home-shopping company QVC.

Next month, it will partner with Cosmopolitan magazine to hold a two-day livestream shopping event at Macy's flagship store in the U.S. starting March 1. The event is modeled after Alibaba's "Double 11 Shopping Festival," with sales primarily relying on livestreaming. Livestream host Jackie Miranne will showcase 60 Macy's products while interacting with shoppers online in real time.

“It may seem odd for Klarna to do something like this, but once developments get underway, it’s another smart way to connect consumers to the brand,” said David Sandstrom, chief marketing officer at Stockholm-based Klarna .

Klarna is expanding its services to help boost sales for 200,000 retail partners, including Wayfair, Nike, H&M, Peloton and Sephora, by tapping into a large audience . It experimented with livestream shopping events in November, with only about ten minutes per hour dedicated to actual sales pitches. Each of the six livestreams attracted more than 100,000 viewers and led to sales of more than 5,000 items.

The epidemic has caused traditional shopping platforms to re-examine their previous e-commerce development models. According to data from market research firm iResearch, traditional shopping platforms such as Macy's are paying close attention to the live shopping model that has been very successful in China. Many brands, including Levi's, Tommy Hilfiger and Rebecca Minkoff, are trying online live sales to attract customer groups who cannot go to offline stores to shop.

Designer Rebecca Minkoff said her eponymous fashion and accessories brand saw a 30% surge in website traffic after running eight or nine live-streamed sales events on Instagram and Amazon, and she plans to run more live events in the fourth quarter.

Sandstrom is very optimistic about the sales channel of online live streaming. He said that if the business is not expanded to online live streaming sales, traditional e-commerce will enter a period of stagnation.

Cross-border e-commerce market

Live Sales

European Market