First-principles.
- Live commerce short-circuits desire.
Live commerce’s raison d’etre is reducing friction between impulse and action. It came into existence because of the phenoenon called ‘cart abandonement’. This happens when people pick stuff to buy, but then don’t complete the transaction. for fashion industry, cart abandonement is 90%, it seems.
Often because better-sense prevails. An hour logged out from the desiro-rama that is online shopping’s infinite scroll is often enough to turn ‘I NEED that shirt’ to ‘Do I REALLY need that shirt?’ - Desire deferred is desire tamed.
Live commerce = desire untamed.
That influencer-n-infinite-scroll-free awareness is essential for mindful consumption. Live commerce exists, precisely to turn that into a distant, uncool, inconvenient, unrealistic option. - Live commerce v/s Mindfulness
Mindful consumption is effectively a break on the growth engine.
Economic growth in the current paradigm, afterall requires ceaseless, mindless consumption.
Imagine if people woke up from their stupor and stopped buying clothes, phones, gadgets, cars that they don’t really need.. Mindful people are mindful of what they need, what they desire, why they desire. That consciousness alerts them to their privilege, their impact on the world around, the boundaries of their needs and desires… If these people become a majority, the economic engine of the world will come to a grinding halt. - Mindless consumption is a fuel for climate change.
Accelerating mindless consumption leads to climate change. For the worse. Undoubtedly.
And don’t fall for the greewashed promised of recycling and ‘good for earth’ brands. there is this thing called entropy and then there’s this other thing called incentives. neither of them favour true recycling or being truly, completely good for earth, while being mindless.And climate change’s negative impact is detrimental to humanity, not to the planet. The planet will go on. Humanity won’t. (Hence, stop saying ‘Save the Planet’. Start saying ‘Save Yourselves’.) - Live commerce = commerce for a hacked-brain era.
THe smartest brains in the world are busy unleashing data science and behaviour science to hack our desires, our impulses. Live commerce thrives on removing this barrier called mindfulness and driving us to surrender to our impulses.
Hence,
Truth About Branding 