The buying and selling online world is constantly changing. Social commerce refers to the active use of social media to successfully facilitate e-commerce transactions.
What then is the difference between e-commerce and social commerce?
Ecommerce, in traditional terms, was set up to take place on the brand's website. Shopify is an example of a platform that makes the sale of goods possible.
Many brands have been using social media for a long time to seek potential customers, but the whole idea was to attract the customers to the said brand's website where the purchases could be made.
Social commerce is therefore a subset of e-commerce. It gives customers the chance to purchase within the social media platform directly without having to go to the website.
Some tactics that your business can use today for social commerce success are:
1. Slightly lowering your items' price for better social sales
If you are dealing with high-end apparel or luxury goods, you are probably not going to have the same experience with social media that the lower-priced retailers will have.
This generally cuts across all categories in e-commerce, the products that are priced lower simply perform better. Below is the average of orders in different regions in the world:
Some reasons why lower-priced items have higher sales is the desire of buyers to try on products before they buy them, especially if the product is expensive. If they are not satisfied through online buying.
Another reason would be the fact that social media is thought of as a place people make impulsive purchases and not intentional shopping.
For those that sell a variety of products with different price ranges, it is advisable to make sure you use your ad spend for the products with lower prices.
2. Creating an automated bot checkout
We have moved away from the days when shoppers were guided around stores by real-life sales reps. Buying via social media does not entail such an experience unless the brand puts into action an automated bot checkout.
Although it still is a somewhat new technology, chatbots allow you to create your personalized set of conversational questions that are in direct relation to the products being sold. This allows the customer to fully engage with the bot while shopping the same way they would with a salesperson.
It is said that with the use of AI, retailers will be able to save approximately $340 billion each year by the year 2022. However, using such tools could have you way more as a retailer.
3. Integration of social commerce into your existing e-commerce platform
The integration of data across social platforms is simple. This is why roughly 51% of marketers have it done. If your business routinely changes the catalog or updates it, it is only wise to make sure that the changes are synced across the social platforms on which the business is.
4. Partnering up with influencers to boost your social commerce sales
Influencer marketing has been a used concept for a long time now, and it is probably not going anywhere anytime soon. Influencers can use tags on Instagram that are shoppable and with that push buyers to your store thus promotion of products directly is made much easier and faster.
For a customer, this creates a smooth and seamless experience. They see an influencer's story promoting a product, they click through and make the decision to make the purchase.
Your opportunity to continually expand your social media reach is huge as many people all over the world follow influencers on any given social media channel.
Conclusion
Social commerce is easy and popular and that leaves you as a retailer with the real question; Will you jump on board and be the next John Lawson in terms of success or wait until you fall behind?
