How Social Commerce Empower Traditional E-commerce Businesses to Grow 3X Faster

Social commerce is a trending and most demanded subset of eCommerce that is actively blurring the line between social interaction and online shopping.

Social interaction with the consumers is a highlighted pain point of every eCommerce business owner as their users are landing on their shopping platforms like websites or apps, but not making a purchase.

Here, the social commerce strategy comes into play. Social commerce with its different features like Live streaming shopping, video base shopping, and more, works as a boon for many eCommerce businesses and helps them grow three times faster.  

Social commerce

Social commerce in eCommerce refers to rendering a social media experience on an eCommerce website, a dedicated eCommerce app, or a social media platform where customers can purchase while having a one-on-one interaction with your brand. 

Also, social commerce speeds up the transaction process as it minimizes the checkout process and gives the user a faster & more convenient shopping experience. 

Here are the six main shopping ways empowered by social commerce:

• Community shopping
  

  Users can chat with other users or merchants on messaging platforms to get advice and share thoughts.

• Group buying
  

  Users can buy products at lower prices when more users (friends or strangers) make the purchase together. 

• Shopping integrated into social media
  

  Users can shop on social media sites, often via ‘buy now’ tags, from either merchants or other users.

• C2C trusted sales platform
  

  Users can sell products to other users and communicate with each other on C2C platforms.

  Recommendations

  Users can share comments, rate, and recommend products.
  User-curated shopping: Users are free to create lists of favorite items that other users, mostly friends, usually shop from.

For which eCommerce businesses, social commerce is highly effective?

The top two categories dominant in this sector are fashion and household items such as food, personal care, and many more.

• Fashion and apparel 
• Home Decor 
• Sports merchandise
• Women’s retail 

How can an eCommerce business start with Social Commerce?

Competing for your e-commerce business website and mobile apps in the social commerce market requires the brands to come up with effective marketing strategies. Having an effective strategy from scratch can help e-commerce businesses succeed on social media platforms. 

Here we have a list of things to add to your eCommerce marketing strategy before starting with the social commerce:

• Know-how of customers
  

  Knowing your users and target audience is the first step to performing great on social commerce grounds. By this, we mean to be familiar with shopping preferences, shopping behaviors, and other things.
  Looking at the user-generated content to figure out what kind of posts your customers find engaging also goes well. Being aware of your customers will persuade them to make the purchase which in turn will lead to an increase in your business. 

• Flexible approach
  

  Social commerce is not something static but dynamic. It keeps on changing from time to time which makes it imperative for the brands to be flexible in their approach while working on social commerce.
  For instance, back in time, Instagram used to have only photos but now the trend has changed. People prefer videos and stories instead of photos. Reels also go well on Instagram. Consequently, e-commerce businesses having websites and apps need to be flexible in their strategies and change them frequently as per the trends. 

• Choice of platforms
  

  What kind of social media platforms the e-commerce businesses are using to promote their business also defines their future growth. When choosing social commerce platforms, you need to take into account different aspects of your consumers such as demographic information, age range, and other things.
  It is because certain age groups people prefer to use one social media platform over another. Once you get to know on which platform your users are most active, you can accordingly target that platform and improve your e-commerce business. 

• Emphasize the purchase process
  

  Another thing to focus on while working with social commerce is the checkout process. Ecommerce businesses or brands should share the products with a buy button so that the customers can easily make the purchase.
  Instead of redirecting the customers to your website or app, it is better to streamline your purchase process to make the customers easily get what they have been looking for. Otherwise, the lengthy checkout process can make you lose nearly 26% of your customers. Consequently, integrate social commerce into e-commerce apps and websites. 

• Integrating social commerce into an e-commerce store
  

  All those business owners planning to enhance their e-commerce websites and apps should make the products available to users on social media networks. Making use of social commerce can help consumers easily discover your brand. 

How can an eCommerce business make use of Social Commerce to grow faster?

Making use of social commerce for your e-commerce business can turn out to be a lucrative one for you. Here’s an overview of some of the benefits social commerce brings to e-commerce businesses. 

• Get reviews and recommendations
  

  Looking to boost your reviews and recommendations? Social commerce is the way forward for you. By being active on social media platforms, e-commerce businesses can easily engage with their customers. Customers will automatically leave positive reviews when the brand is constantly providing them with what they are looking for in an overall sound experience. The e-commerce business owners can also boost customers’ interactions with the brand through comments, likes, and shares. 

• Convert customers

  Be it, old-aged people or youngsters, nearly every generation is active on one or the other social media platform. So, why not take advantage of their social media presence to convert your customers from there? Sounds great, right?
  It becomes much easier to convert customers when you meet and interact with them at their preferred platform. 

• Increases brand awareness

  Another benefit social commerce brings to you is increasing your brand awareness and giving you the desired exposure. By bringing highly engaging content for your users and the one which is going on trends, social commerce increases your brand awareness.
  By collaborating with popular influencers having a large following, the brands can witness a noticeable improvement in their awareness and popularity. 

• Gets you useful data

  Employing social commerce in your e-commerce business can also get you useful data regarding your customers. By going into the analytics, you can get valuable insights into your customers such as which age group people engage more with your business.
  Not only this, but you can also know how your posts are performing and at what time the people are most active on social commerce platforms. Consequently, you can make use of this data to improve the overall customer experience. 

Final say

Integrating social commerce into e-commerce websites and apps will assist to increase revenue, improve brand awareness, and reach new customers. By scheduling your content and learning about the customer’s shopping behaviors, you can take your e-commerce business to great heights. So what are you waiting for? Schedule your one-on-one session with the experts at Technocrats Horizons and get started with our custom IT services.