Nigel Wilkinson
Managing Director of Daneswood. Nigel has been in sales and marketing since the 1980's and run digital marketing agencies since 2000.
As an eCommerce website owner, you may be looking at the rise of social commerce with nervousness or scepticism. Without knowing much about it, it is understandable to have these reactions.
But in fact, social commerce can be a huge compliment to your eCommerce website, helping to reach audiences and increase sales in areas you have not yet explored.
We are going to look at what social commerce actually means, and how you can use it to your advantage alongside your website.
Social Commerce
Social commerce is a tool that provides a shopping experience to users within a social platform. It is not an online store, but instead offers users the ability to complete a purchase without leaving the platform they’re on.
There are many reasons why this has become so popular, with benefits for both businesses and customers. Social commerce allows businesses to be much more diverse in the way they bring their products to customers, catching people at a point that has not previously been possible.
Instead of customers having to go to your eCommerce site and search for what they are looking for, products are put directly in front of them. In fact, with shoppable posts, customers are exposed to the opportunity to purchase a product they may not initially have been looking for but like the look of, thanks to social media.
Rather than just seeing a post and giving it a like, they are instead able to click and purchase the product within the post, then and there, seamlessly and without leaving the platform they are on.
Combine this with the ability to share content across platforms and your products are suddenly being opened up to a much wider audience.
Social commerce really shines through when it comes to low to medium-priced products. When scrolling through social media, people are not thinking about money or things they need, they are instead focusing on connecting with people and experiencing the enjoyable content on offer.
Therefore, social commerce is perfect for lower-cost purchases, which don’t require a huge thought process or budgeting and benefit from the frictionless buying process. The less work required to attain the product the better!
So, is it a replacement?
No, social commerce is not a replacement for eCommerce websites and when it comes to larger or more complicated purchases, this tool is not suitable. Large scale purchases are where customers will still be purchasing through your eCommerce site.
There are also other benefits to having an eCommerce site that social media isn’t able to meet at the moment.
Having a website with clear contact details and company information is extremely important in providing a quality customer experience. Purchasing on a social platform can sometimes feel a bit faceless so having that information online is really important.
You also own your website, whereas you don’t own your social commerce shop, and so control is limited compared to your site.
Likewise, the insights that you can access about transactions, customers, and so on are significantly less for social commerce compared to sales through your eCommerce website. Not having this data could hamper future business growth.
Finally, having your eCommerce site gives you the ability to focus on content for SEO too and without this, you don’t have the ability to be found in search engines and could lose a lot of custom to competitors that do appear online.
Using Social Commerce with your E-Commerce Website
One of the best places to start is with Facebook Shops because you will likely already have a Facebook presence and have established your brand, to a point.
Facebook Shops are an easy next step and can be customised to appear in line with your eCommerce shop.
The Instagram shop works in a similar way and pulls data from the Facebook catalogue, so this is almost a natural next step when you are ready to increase the amount of social commerce you offer.
Instagram’s Shop is an excellent platform for businesses that sell visual products.
Instagram also allows you to customise your storefront so is great for pushing a particular product range or promotion.
Basically, by using social commerce alongside your eCommerce store, you are providing customers with a way to easily purchase from you and reduce the amount of abandonment caused by confusion or unnecessary clicks.
Maintaining the two, side by side, is the best way possible to drive sales. For more information or help with your eCommerce marketing, contact our team of experts today.