Social commerce is a concept that has been here for several years. It is a subset of e-commerce that concerns using social media platforms to sell products and services, thus being able to buy a product immediately from a social media site. We are the generation of social media and online shopping, thus is seems logical to integrate these two.
How can social commerce aid in maximising sales? What can social media do for your e-commerce?
Customer loyalty
Using social media is the perfect opportunity to engage, build and maintain relationships with customers. The company will become more transparent, as customers can rate products, write and also read comments, which will increase the interaction and satisfaction. Building a good relationship and satisfying your customers will increase the trust and loyalty and will likely lead to repeat purchases.
Reach new audience
Using social media has a wider reach due to the amount of users. Users on social media like to share their personal experience and will thus also share information about products they find interesting. Users who originally did not hear about the product can therefore still be reached.
Free tracking of users
Different tools can be used to collect data to know customers’ behaviours and interests. With this information, it is easier to come up with a more personalized strategy in order to attract more customers.
Apart from this, there are more benefits when utilizing social commerce for your business. However, did you also know that Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr already integrated a buy button in 2014, while Instagram joined in 2015 with the buy now button. According to marketing week, 56% of the participants like and follow brands on social media to see their products. Another 35% get inspiration from social media on what to buy or where to go shopping next. However, when asked about their willingness to buy a product directly from a social media site, only 19% would be willing to buy on Facebook, which was ranked the highest among the social media websites.
The results show that social commerce is not booming even though the concept was already introduced several years ago. Moreover, Twitter has shut down their buy button in 2016, which demonstrates that social commerce is not that successful yet. However, the question is will it ever be successful?
References:
Chahal, M. (2016). Social commerce: how willing are consumers to buy through social media Available at https://www.marketingweek.com/2016/03/23/social-commerce-how-willing-are-consumers-to-buy-through-social-media/
Mustafi, S. (2010). The benefits of social commerce for suppliers and customers. Available at
http://www.academia.edu/1364232/The_benefits_of_social_commerce_for_suppliers_and_customers
Cliette, B. (2016). The raw benefits of using a social commerce platform. Available at
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/raw-benefits-using-social-commerce-platform-brian-cliette/
Hutchinson, A. (2016). The evolution and futureof social commerce [inforgraphic]. Available at http://www.socialmediatoday.com/social-business/evolution-and-future-social-commerce-infographic
Mullin, S. (2017). Social commerce: what it is, what it isn’t and why you should care. Available at https://conversionxl.com/blog/social-commerce/
