WHAT IS SOCIAL COMMERCE?
WHAT ARE SOME OF ITS FEATURES?
First introduced by Yahoo in 2005, “social commerce” has been rapidly gaining popularity in recent years, with social media’s continuously evolving influence.
Purported to be the future of e-commerce, social commerce is the ability to make a product purchase from a third-party company within the native social media experience, from learning about a product through direct messages to making a mobile payment via a social app, by providing a platform that enables an end-to-end buying journey for consumers.
Not to be confused with e-commerce, social commerce is in essence a subset of the former, differing in that it focuses on selling on social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram directly.
Trends on Social Commerce:
9% increase in social media users year-on-year
23% of internet users spending significantly more time on social media
30% of online shoppers highlighted a propensity to make purchases off social media platforms
87% of e-commerce shoppers believe that social media helps them to make a shopping decision
31% of CAGR for Global Social Commerce
Features of Social Commerce:
Source: Big Commerce, The Asean Post, We Are Social, Smart Insights, GSMA
WHY SHOULD RETAILERS EMBRACE
SOCIAL COMMERCE?
Due to Covid-19, physical retail has been heavily beaten,
while digital transformation has been greatly accelerated.
Accompanying that, social commerce has been quickly rising in popularity because of its higher performance and ability to drive faster revenue growth. Social Media Messenger sales is one example, which has outperformed traditional forms of customer outreach, with immediate correspondence leading to higher levels of engagement at over 80% open rate with at least 7 times more click-throughs than email.
Case Study 1: Levi's
Levi's managed to double its product views within a week of using Tiktok's "Shop Now" button.
The creators' videos appeared on Tiktok as In-Feed Ads and once users clicked on "Shop Now", they would be able to buy the same design on Levi's website.
Source: later
Case Study 2: Lian Huat
Local seafood supplier Lian Huat garners as much as 30K views in one Facebook live stream and sells 400-500 boxes of seafood in one night.
Source: Facebook, Lian Huat Seafood
Massive improvement from before, where business was struggling
HOW TO LEVERAGE SOCIAL COMMERCE TO ELEVATE YOUR BUSINESS?
In China, where social commerce is largely prevalent, and has been for quite some time, an estimated 11.6% of total retail e-commerce sales is driven by social commerce.
In other parts of the world, success in social commerce has also begun to take off. Social media referral traffic to online stores has grown more than 100% in the past 2 years, which is more than growth of any other channel. Now, 1 in 4 business owners are selling through Facebook, and 40% of merchants use social media to generate sales.
From mega retailers such as Levi's to local seafood supplier Lian Huat, retailers are increasingly willing to embrace and advance their social commerce strategies. Up to 50% of retailers have indicated that they are working to align their social media advertising with their overall ecommerce strategy. Given the growth prospects of social commerce, how then can businesses leverage this to increase their revenue?
VKT SOCIAL COMMERCE ROADMAP
1
Build a Digital Presence on Social Media
Business Challenge
Today, 84% of shoppers review at least one social media site before purchase. Businesses are facing challenges in gaining digital presence and brand awareness in the highly competitive social media landscape to keep up with the changing customer journey and behaviour.
VKT Program
Build a Digital Presence on Social Media: Conduct performance-driven customer and market insights to understand the digital customer journey for brand building on social media. Thereafter, drive discovery commerce through content marketing, and convert visitors to customers.
2
Drive Better Digital Results
Business Challenge
Social Media is shaping purchasing decisions through user-generated content, ratings and reviews, advertising driven by consumer behaviour data. Many businesses are facing difficulties in converting website visitors coming from organic and paid advertising campaigns into qualified leads, customers, and brand advocates.
3
Accelerate Digital Revenue using Social Commerce
Business Challenge
According to IBM, more than 75% of consumers are willing to make purchases directly from a social media platform. Social media is amongst the top platforms for digital consumers to discover new brands and products. With intense competition and poor targeting, many businesses has an inability to drive digital sales using social commerce.
VKT Program
Digital Growth: Improve ROI from different digital channels using data analytics and conversion rate optimisation. Drive website purchase through social proof, landing/product page optimisation, search-engine optimisation, and search-engine marketing.
VKT Program
Leveraging Social Commerce: Drive social selling campaigns by converting social shoppers into customers using the right message and at the right time. Once website traffic is substantial, we use data science and AI to improve Average Order Value and ROAS.
[EXCLUSIVE FOR VKT COMMUNITY]
FOR MORE DETAILS CONTACT OUR TEAM
Interested to leverage Social Commerce to drive your e-Commerce sales?
Join Vivien and team for a 30-minutes Zoom Fireside Chat at your own convenience. We will be sharing more on the best practices of social commerce, past client experiences, and how VKT can elevate your business with social commerce.
It will be in a group setting to encourage sharing of ideas. Please state your availability here: https://calendly.com/vktconsult/firesidechat
Vivien Koh
Founder and Managing Director
Practicing Management Consultant
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Anchyi Fong
Digital Marketing Consultant
Sammi Chan
Digital Marketing Consultant
Kelda Lim
Digital Marketing Consultant
For more information please go to: https://www.vktransformation.com. Reach out to us on our website and feel free to share our newsletter.