Social Commerce: The Winning Combination of Social Media and eCommerce

Nowadays, social networks have become an integral part of everyday life. Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter, Pinterest among others continue to engage users with relatable content, making them spend hours scrolling through their feed.

With almost 90% of Asia Pacific’s population surfing through mobile commerce, brands and retailers put this media to greater use, thus, inventing a fairly new concept called Social Commerce.

Earlier, businesses simply relied on social channels to improve their brand presence and connect with their customers. But, in recent years, it has become far more than that. Today, these channels have evolved to become another medium for online shopping.

For instance, your shoppers might see a pair of red boots on their Facebook page, hit “shop now” and complete the purchase then and there. Or, one of their friends has posted a story featuring their brand new smartwatch. When they click on it, they can purchase the same product right there in the app.

In a joint survey conducted by Magento and Hootsuite, almost 6 in 10 consumers claimed that one-quarter of their online shopping is influenced by Facebook and YouTube.

So, what exactly is social commerce and how can you benefit from it?

Social Commerce- Meaning and Practices

Investopedia explains social commerce as ‘The use of networking websites such as Facebook, Instagram, & Twitter as vehicles to promote and sell their products.’ Although the definition may seem complex, implementing it is pretty simple. To put it in context, as users interact with unique content, brands and businesses leverage social presence to successfully achieve their marketing goals.

These practices include—

Offering discounts and promotions, to users who share products on their social feeds.

Providing personalized buying options and a seamless browsing-to-checkout journey.

Attracting users with striking graphics such as videos and images, compelling product descriptions, interesting posts, etc.

Encouraging user-generated content such as product endorsements, reviews, and recommendations, etc.

In a nutshell, social commerce creates a mini-shopping experience directly onto the users’ social pages and motivates them to shop by interacting with the products and services. Consumers can directly buy products, or share them with their friends and followers, or otherwise review them directly on these social vehicles.

What Does Social Commerce Look Like Today

Of late, Social commerce has evolved into a powerful sales channel. Till now, brands and retailers carried eCommerce activities only through conventional media. But, social commerce has opened new opportunities that help buyers have a faster and effective route to the instant shopping experience. This way brands and businesses develop a meaningful relationship with these social users.

Avg. Growth Statistics of Social Commerce in Singapore, Vietnam, Philippines and Thailand

Source: The Rise of Social Commerce in Southeast Asia Report

Understanding the potential of social commerce, The Asia Social Commerce Report conducted by Paypal, claims that almost 80% of retail businesses across APAC sell through social media.

Southeast Asian eCommerce retailers using social networks to drive multichannel sales

Taking a hint from brands and businesses, social channels keep focusing their efforts to enhance this trend.

Social media companies keep adding new capabilities and functionalities to make the shopper’s purchase journey easier than before.

To help optimize a seamless shopping experience, Instagram and Facebook have enabled checkout features directly, without letting users leave the app.

Another significant feature of social commerce is having an interactive look-book or visual catalogues. While Facebook has enabled relevant Call-To-Action buttons like ‘shop now ‘or ‘buy now’, Instagram has initiated a shop icon giving access to the latest products that brands and retailers have on their eCommerce channels.

Apart from these capabilities, businesses have started focusing on tools, software, and AI-enabled systems. User-friendly chatbots, products featured through live-selling and broadcasting, social celebrity endorsements, etc. have had a significant prominence. APAC businesses claim to have increased 13%-16% sales just by using live-streaming.

Different ways to use Social commerce strategy for multichannel eCommerce

As a result, most businesses agree to social commerce being a dominating differentiator to expand their multichannel selling activities.

Know Benefits of Social Commerce @ https://my.selluseller.com/en/resources/blogs/benefits-of-social-commerce-for-multichannel-businesses