By 2027, the global social shopping market will reach $604.5 billion.
If you have a business that sells products, you are probably visualising dollar signs right now.
Want to know how to get a piece of that dough? You’re in the right place. Keep reading to learn all about social shopping.
What is social shopping and why should your ecommerce business care?
Social shopping is where social media meets ecommerce.
Also called social commerce, social shopping is a way of shopping online where buyers and sellers discuss products, get reviews and buy on social media.
Think of all the cosmetics that get sold on Instagram. Or the sneakers that are auctioned on Twitter.
If you are not on social media, you have no input in these discussions. Similarly, if you are not selling on social media, you are leaving money on the table. Loads of it.
In 2010, Levi took social shopping to an entirely new level by integrating social media with their store. As a result, up to 30% of their web traffic came from Facebook by 2011.
Meanwhile, 93% of consumers say that they consider online reviews before buying something and 50% of people would pay more for a product that has positive online reviews.
Also, 30% of people who shop online say that they are likely to make purchases via social media.
You see? 🙂
Evidently, people listen to others before buying stuff and many are willing to pay more for tested and trusted products.
What are the benefits of social commerce to customers?
Remember that crop top your friend bought on Ali express that ended up being your 2-year old cousin’s size?
Okay, maybe your friend doesn’t have a crop top story and I’m just assuming. But I bet you have heard enough ‘what I ordered vs what I got’ stories to know what I’m talking about.
Social shopping is growing more popular by the day because it gives customers control and room to make informed buying decisions.
Among others, here are a few benefits of social shopping to customers:
1. Access to Customer Support
Customers can make public inquiries and complaint. This then makes businesses respond faster.
2. Ease of Purchase
Customers can easily search for businesses that sell their favourite products, contact them and buy.
3. Better Buying Decisions
By following discussions about a particular product, customers can find product reviews and make informed decisions.
How to use social shopping for your ecommerce business
Some of the top platforms for social shopping include: Facebook shops, Instagram shops, Pinterest product pins and Snapchat brand profiles.
With these and more, your business can benefit from social shopping in the following ways:
1. Social shopping enables you to test out new strategies
Now that you know social media is a good place to make sales, you need to find ways to put your business in the right places.
You could be everywhere but that will take a lot of time.
So consider your target market and do some research to find out what channels they are most active or likely to use.
So if that is your target audience, you should definitely consider all your options.
The best part of all these is that you can quickly and affordably experiment with new ideas and products.
2. Social shopping helps you learn about your customer
A good way to do this is through social listening.
This is when you keep tabs on happenings on social media – where your business is being mentioned by customers and non-customers and what people are saying about it.
You can then use this insight to curate customer feedback or complaints and respond to them genuinely and accordingly or make up for lapses.
It will also keep you informed about your customers’ changing expectations per time.
READ: How to write copy that people want to read
3. Social shopping improves business sales
You can make more sales when customers drop positive comments and others see it.
The social proof is enough to convince people to buy from or patronise you.
4. Social shopping can help you run better campaigns
You can target advertising campaigns to reach specific audiences.
For many social media platforms, you can run audience specific ads and get your desired results in terms of product sales, course sales, service bookings, you name it.
The options are endless – Facebook ads, Twitter ads, Instagram promotions, Youtube ads or even LinkedIn ads.
Above all, consider the social media world your oyster and their advertising tools your playground.
5. Social shopping helps you leverage user-generated content
You can use positive comments as testimonials to drive brand trust and credibility.
They took a Whatsapp testimonial and repurposed it into content for Instagram.
6. Social shopping helps you leverage influencer marketing
From Instagram hotshots like Kylie Jenner who was the highest paid Instagram influencer in 2019 to Dwayne Johnson ‘The Rock’ and even your next-door lifestyle blogger friend, you can engage micro and top influencers to promote your brand to their followers.
When choosing influencers to help push your business, always consider what they are popular for and make sure to find ones whose followers fit into your product or service niche.
Does influencer marketing cost a lot sometimes? Oh yes!
But the returns are so worth it when done right.
Conclusion
As technology is becoming more mobile and internet access is getting cheaper, people across the world are more connected than ever before.
Social media is part of everyday life and the average person spends about 2 hours and 22 minutes on social networking daily.
If you’re not leveraging all this, your business is likely to fall way short of its growth potential and your competitors will breathe easy.
Don’t snooze. Start using social shopping for your ecommerce business today.
About Oyinkansola Ogunyinka
Oyinkansola is the Marketing Strategist at Hera, a platform that delivers content marketing services to high-growth companies. She is a fiction author, hopeless romantic and ice-cream lover. Read more from Oyinkansola.
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Thank you for the article. I think businesses that do not have an online store should consider getting one. We are in a digital world.
Yeah, I agree with this but not entirely. I’d say businesses that should really consider starting an online store are product based companies. Service based companies should also sell online though, via their social media and website.
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