A small-scale trial of a new Amazon service which sees product demonstrations conducted by presenters in real time, echoing the shopping channels which are prevalent on modern digital TV services, has begun in the US.

The aim is to encourage more customers to carry out safe shopping online by showing them exactly what products can do in live streamed clips rather than simply listing specifications in plain text and perhaps providing a few images to go along with this.

Amazon Live is the e-commerce giant’s second attempt to bring live streamed videos to its shopping site, following on from a fashion-focused effort three years ago. In this instance the streams not only include presenters and product demos but also links that will take customers through to the item they are seeing on the screen of their device.

Rapid international growth in sales has helped Amazon to continue investing in the creation of fresh services like this, although since the firm is exploring so many different avenues at once that there is no guarantee that its QVC-style video solution will stand the test of time and enjoy a wider rollout to reach the UK and other major markets.

Consumers can access a world of product reviews carried out by independent content creators on YouTube, which means that Amazon Live has quite a significant competitor that it needs to overcome in order to make an impact. The fact that these videos will be created by brands and their ambassadors rather than impartial reviewers could also limit their power to influence shoppers.

The trial will allow Amazon to work out whether this innovation is worth pursuing, and the results should be made public later this year, at which point Brits may get a chance to see their own product demo streams in action.