Social commerce is emerging fast, especially among millennials and Gen Zs. The important question is whether it will become the future of online shopping. This blog post will explore social commerce and its many benefits.
Ever since its inception, eCommerce has had a significant impact on the market. It has affected how people conduct their regular business. It has been observed that this growth pattern of e-commerce has shifted towards social commerce and for good reason. No wonder social commerce has been predicted to grow exponentially over the next few years.
Recent years have seen exponential growth in social media users, and social commerce is reaping direct benefits from this growth. For the unversed, social commerce sells and purchases various items directly from different social media platforms. This purchase could range from discovering the product on a particular platform to purchasing and checking it out, giving the consumer the complete shopping experience.
Importance of Social Commerce
A recent study shows that customers are more likely to buy products from a social media app they visit often than a dedicated website for the product. Naturally, most business owners nowadays have their products on social media and e-commerce websites. Considering the rising popularity of social media, most new product owners prefer to float their brands on social media to get more traffic and sales. They spend considerable time and effort devising advertising strategies to get consumers interested in their products while scrolling through the various social media platforms.
ALSO READ: Everything You Need to Know About Connected Logistics
People spend around three to four hours daily online on various activities such as scrolling, posting, and messaging. These activities provide perfect opportunities for business owners to target such customers. Unlike e-commerce, social commerce provides business owners to develop their brand value. They create exclusive handles, and based on the product they offer, they create a regular and loyal customer base. These customers are also important in spreading the word to their family and friends.
In other cases, business owners collaborate with social media influencers to spread the word about their product and extoll its virtues. This means that business owners can also access the followers of these social media influencers. This targeting also helps the business owner create a dedicated community and quickly expand their customer base.
Advantages of Social Commerce
Social commerce has ensured that business owners have multiple opportunities and avenues of growth. They can promote and sell their products in a myriad of ways and increase their revenue. In this section, let’s look at some of the features of social commerce and the benefit they provide to business owners.
Increase Customer Commitment
Business owners selling through social media pages open two-way communication between consumers and sellers. This is an ideal opportunity for the business to build trust, be transparent, and be proactive in their approach. Doing so will automatically increase sales and make customers trust the brand more. When customers view a product on a social media page, after viewing the product, they immediately check for reviews, photos, and comments made by previous customers. This feedback is crucial in converting an interested onlooker to a loyal customer. Moreover, if you, as a business owner, go that extra mile for regular and dedicated customers, that will also increase your brand value and worth to other customers.
Increase the Value of Average Orders
Social media channels have their ideal target audience in millennials and Gen Zs. If you, as a business owner, can grab the pulse of what these specific categories of customers require, you can flourish in this social commerce. A good starting point is to make the shopping experience seamless. Remembering customer preferences and tweaking product suggestions will go a long way to ensure that the customer buys more products from you. Ensure your social media pages are interactive and equally easily accessible through mobiles, tablets, and laptops. The easier you make the shopping experience for customers, the more likely they will become your return customer.
ALSO READ: How to Ship a Mattress?
Continuous Community Increase
The main idea behind social commerce is to build a steady customer base. Unlike regular eCommerce websites, the more people that follow you, the higher guarantee of increased revenues. It is unsurprising that business owners spend considerable time and effort to entice new customers. The more followers you have, the more chances of selling; if these customers are happy, they will keep returning for more products. To do that, the message behind your product should be interesting enough for social media users to stop scrolling and really check it out. So your marketing strategy and the message you convey through it should be two-fold. You should be able to attract new potential customers and retain your existing loyal customer base. The balance is tricky but achievable. You just have to figure out what message you want to convey to people. Remember that whatever message you convey will be widespread across multiple social media platforms.
Increase Ranking in Search Engines
When business owners use social media for their products, it increases the footfall into their e-commerce website and encourages the customer to directly go to the merchant website for further transactions. Doing this makes customers more involved with the brand. So when a customer sees your social media advertisement and visits your website, it means there is a higher chance of them purchasing something from your inventory. Additionally, if the same customer is happy with their purchase, they will likely visit your website directly the next time. Once they become frequent consumers, they are more likely to engage with your brand by leaving feedback, adding recommendations, and promoting your product to their friends and families. That guarantees further traffic to your e-commerce website and, ultimately, an increase in your revenue. Furthermore, all these actions taken by your customers will improve your brand’s digital footprint, ultimately leading to a better website search engine ranking.
Improved Insights From Consumers
When businesses opt for social commerce, they have access to data on customer insights. These insights help business owners measure, monitor, and evaluate customer insights. Since social media channels already have ways of monitoring these insights, all you have to do as a business owner is to tweak and manage the data according to your requirement. The advantage of getting the insight is that you can categorize your customer according to their purchase and/or interest pattern. That way, you ensure you can have interest-specific targeted ads for every customer. Social commerce is expected to boost all businesses in the future due to the advantages they provide both business owners and customers.
Conclusion:
With the growth of technology, how a consumer purchases a product has changed. However, the average customer still prefers to buy from a trustworthy brand. Whenever people think of buying a product, they often turn to family, friends, or even influencers they follow on social media for guidance. Business owners must provide that experience through various social media platforms if they want their revenues to grow.
ALSO READ: Why Automative Sellers Should Partner with 3PLs?
They have to build brand value, provide a smooth shopping experience, and allow customers some degree of personalization so that they feel special. That is why nowadays, we see a lot of products that can be personalized either with your name or customized according to your body type and other similar customizations. You must provide that unique experience to grow your business exponentially on social media platforms, as they are the future of eCommerce.
About XPDEL:
XPDEL is a leading hi-tech provider of Fulfillment and Logistics Services on a mission to enable growth for eCommerce companies. We are futuristic in our vision and constantly work on creating technology that helps us meet customer expectations for today and tomorrow. We have a wide network of Fulfillment centers that enables us to efficiently handle nationwide delivery in the US – same day, next day, and 2-day delivery. Being closer to the end consumer, we deliver much faster than others.
