“The world is a world village” is a phrase that’s usually used while referring to the advancements of technology. Things have become easier in a manner where individuals can access services from the comfort of their house just by using the internet via their phones or laptops. However, when it comes to E-commerce, most of the businessmen are still not using social media to enhance their customer’s confidence. By displaying reviews of their friends or families, businessmen can increase conversion rates of their E-commerce websites. Social commerce trend is growing swiftly and has the potential to change the long run of the E-commerce industry if incorporated properly with any E-commerce brand.
The new kind of social commerce trade involves buying and selling of products and services using social media websites as merchandising platforms. These platforms provide customers and producers an opportunity to interact conclusively about their brands. This idea can also be defined as the process of using shopping tools to boost social commerce sales. It is mainly to give clients the blueprint of products or services they wish to purchase as well as offer product reference advice. By connecting people from different parts of the world, it is right to say that E-commerce has brought forth social commerce.
Change of Medium
Since products are easily accessible by someone having the web connection, it’s easier to understand what’s trending and at what value. Huge demand for the products online is created while browsing the web; creatively managed dynamic re-marketing display ads also create a thirst for owning certain products.
This unique form of doing business is driven socially, as it has to use social media sites to feature it. It’s evident on sites like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter which are mostly used for business purposes. Social Commerce also involves the use of platforms under which users have one-on-one voice communication with other users and can sell their products to them. Statistics show that numerous customers buy products due to recommendations given by their friends. It also has a peer recommendation where the user will use recommendations of other users before making a purchase.
Various Social Media Platforms for Social Commerce
Social media and social commerce have a mother and kid relationship as they seem to coexist. Different sites have features that make the involvement of social commerce unforgettable. Facebook, as an example, has the ‘dynamic ads’ as a feature for social commerce. This feature connects businessmen with customers from advertisements on the website or from the mobile applications. According to the dynamic ads survey, it was observed that numerous retailers use Facebook, thereby increasing their sales as it connects retailers with large number of customers each day.
Facebook has launched ‘Marketplace’ where anyone can sell his or her products like classified websites. This has allowed purchasers to enjoy social media as they proceed to buy products. Pinterest also offers a great feature for E-commerce via ‘Buyable pins’ that permits the consumer to buy an item once shared on the platform. This item often comes with reviews and images that allow the customers to make informed selections about the product.
Along the same lines, Instagram is also testing shopping features and hopefully, they will launch their personalized advertisement feature for all business soon. People can always run a paid promoting campaign to promote their product using Instagram ads. Once the user clicks on the button, he/she will be redirected to the identical product page of the seller mobile app/website. After that, a transaction can be made easily from that. The feature is easy-to-use and has encouraged shoppers to purchase things as varieties of products are displayed for the selection.
Benefits of using Social Commerce
Social commerce will give opportunities to consumers and sellers as it provides a backlink to both, the user as well as the vendor. It gives both an upper hand of interacting with many people from all over the world. This highly interactive and trending platform favors everyone in the supply-demand chain as well. Presently, social commerce has become more social in that the purchase of a product is not only done by the customer himself but also by the other parties. Traders have a social circle in which they consult each other on different deals that are about to be made.
A customer may, for example, post on Facebook for recommendation or reviews on a product they are willing to buy. Family and friends often give out their opinion and facilitate the customer in decision-making. Social circles of traders have also been created as this lets them meet on the social platforms where they can easily perform their deals. Consumers get to know from different consumers on who has high-quality products at reasonable costs. This provides the customer with a sense of belonging without going out to experience this.
Some online retailers have also given their clients the prospect to be more confident as it permits them to express their experiences with the brand. They are ready to post their personal experience using the product on several platforms.
It is all about shopping without limits and making customers’ shopping experience memorable. It also gives brands a global outlook. This enables traders who are buyers and sellers to connect from anywhere around the globe.
While engaging in social commerce, the analysis is important as businessmen need to know whether they are targeting the proper channel or not. Effective utilization of social commerce can give an edge over the competitors as well as to satisfy customers. Adapting to this new technological advancement would favor manufacturers and service providers of businesses if they wish to improve customer experiences.
