Social commerce – Why is it worth selling on social media?

As vast as it already is, the world of trade keeps growing and at great speed.  The two years the world spent in pandemic brought much change and made businesses find solutions to the deprivations we all had to endure. It was in this period that social commerce took a powerful kick-off.

What is social commerce?

A straightforward definition of social commerce is a shop of your own on social media. It’s a free way to sell right from the largest social networks. Just like a real-life place of the kind, you have a display window – a screen featuring product images to catch the eyes of whoever sees them.

You also have plenty of easy-to-use tools to create and promote your product collections and to add descriptions, along with the images. But what is it that distinguishes a social shop from the online shopping we’ve all been used to for quite some time now?

Social commerce vs ecommerce – what is the difference

To be in ecommerce means to create a website. Even if it costs nothing to build it, you most probably need to pay for its domain and hosting. And you sure have to invest in making it known.

Okay, you were clever, lucky, or both and have attracted visitors. They browse through your products, choose what they like and click the Buy button. The items they selected are sent to a shopping cart. From there, your potential customers have more buttons to click and much data to fill in until they’re able to order.

And, though today there are easy-to-integrate online payment solutions, until recently such integrations were more of a drag. When it all started, e-commerce seemed a quick way to make purchases – today significant parts of the process seem redundant. And there’s something better now.

Setting up your own social media shop, on the other hand, invokes no expenses. Your audience is by default focused – the people who liked your page sure wish to explore your products and buy them. And the payment is so simplified that to call it a process is inappropriate.

See – select – pay

In a social media shop, you have the chance to show the right product to the right person at the right time. And both you and your customers benefit from the click-to-purchase convenience. All of this happens in one place, which cuts the risk of losing your customer’s attention.

New ways to reach shoppers

Once you set it up, your shop is accessible from your Facebook Page, Instagram profile, and Instagram ads with product tags. The feed displays shoppable content and so do stories, Lives, and Reels. You have so many ways to be seen – and by people who want to see you.

On top of that, you get a lot of valuable information. Your traffic, where it came from, conversion metrics, your audience’s demographics, even insights about the products in your catalogue – social commerce platforms support your business, integrating free tools to collect this and much more data.

Target your ads with precision

Both you and audiences want ads that are well-targeted. The football coach doesn’t care for rich eyeshadow palette offers, just as the acrylic-nails wearer wouldn’t typically dream to be up-to-date with car-oil innovations.

The platforms where your social shops live show you data about people who viewed, saved, or purchased your products. With it, you can remarket your ads, particularly to audiences interested in your business.

Who viewed your shop’s home page, who viewed your products, who clicked to visit your website, who added your products to their cart, who started checkout, and who actually made a purchase – you’ll know so much about your market that your only option to target campaigns wrongfully is to be blindfolded when you’re creating them.

In touch with your customers

Social commerce is about sociability. You know a lot about your customers and have multiple ways to reach them. And you are just a click away from them, too. Via the chat apps each platform integrates, people can make inquiries, ask for help, give you feedback, track purchased goods, etc.

And, back to the original purpose of social media – what your social commerce campaigns achieve will depend on how you engage people in liking, commenting, rating, and sharing your catalogue and posts.

The shopping center of tomorrow

Statistics say that Facebook and Instagram enjoy immense popularity when it comes to business. No matter what age group your potential customers fall into, men and women alike – nearly everyone’s on Facebook and Instagram. And many of these people love shopping.

According to BusinessWire, around 80% of consumers in the United Kingdom used social media platforms for shopping in 2021. The primary social commerce consumers are 18- to 28-year-olds.  In 2022, the market is expected to grow by 37.5% on an annual basis and reach $21 billion.

Your shop is your chance for a chunk of it.

Tips for success

Managing your social commerce does not differ from what would be clever to do if your shop was physical. In case you’re not too experienced in the domain, here are a few things you can do to boost your sales:

• Use your storefront to attract visitors. Bring forward the most alluring products featured in your catalogue. These will help sell the rest, too.
• Frequently change what you show in the front. This gives a sensation of intense flow of goods, along with an urgency – if I don’t buy it now, I might never see it again.
• Circle up in your calendar seasonal and other festivities, relevant to what you offer, and plan how to stir things up around each of these. They’re great opportunities to increase sales. Decorate your shop, make promotions, offer prizes – anything that your imagination or competition intelligence suggests.
• Bundle similar products and give them more chances to be noticed. For example, all things light-gray, all things silk, and everything with short sleeves. Here’s how that light-gray, short-sleeved, silk shirt is now in three unique collections and can be seen by colour-fanatics, by fabric-connoisseurs, or when taste is defined by the climate.
• Like in an online store, images sell in social commerce. The more, the better and it goes for their quality, as well. People can’t touch what you sell, so at least allow them a closer look. And give them as many perspectives of a product as it makes sense.
• Detailed descriptions are just as important. Try not to miss a thing about an item, while keeping it concise and simple.
• Use the data-collection tools outlined earlier here. And more importantly so – pay attention to and go along with your followers’ trends.

Conclusion

Social commerce is powerful because it mixes what’s great about e-commerce with social media platforms. It’s free and offers both a fairly easy onboarding process and an immense audience. Unless you’re just starting in business, chances are you’ve already used social media to popularise your products. Now both your ads and your purchase funnel are in one place – and that’s exactly where you want your shop to be.

Nevertheless, do not close your website just yet. Rather, build your social commerce on top of it and manage both along.

Disclaimer: Please be aware that the contents of this article and the myPOS Blog, in general, should not be interpreted as legal, monetary, tax, or any other kind of professional advice. You should always seek to consult with a professional before taking action, since the particulars of your situation may materially differ from other cases.