Step Into A World Of Social Selling
Social Commerce is basically Word-Of-Mouth applied to e-commerce. You trust the power of e-commerce right?
Are you ready to harness the power of social commerce?In the world of e-commerce, Europe is leading the way with 40% of the European internet population buying things on-line in 2010. How will 2011 be? We’ll see by the end of this year. E-Commerce helps small businesses grow, gives consumers access to all the products, doesn’t have closing times so a 24/7 window to sell and is being more and more integrated in daily life.
Consumers nowadays expect flexibility and thanks to our smart-phones they are always connected and start purchasing whenever and wherever they want to.
Social Commerce is buying where you connect and connecting where you buy… this provides our sales targets with:
- better knowledge before they initiate a purchase,
- better pricing for all
- a fun and interactive shopping experience
- an improvement in customer experience and
- personalised experiences.
- instant satisfaction
Social Commerce will improve your ROI on e-commerce… really? Yes, research shows:
- 47% product increase of shopping basket
- 40% increase of conversion rate
- 45% decrease of product returns
This will mean for you that you do not have to hide behind advertising any more, you will have better informed customers, you can target your customers with better deals, get rid of overstock, increases your longtail and lets you tap into a new place to sell your products or services.
There are several forms of social commerce, ranging from; crowd sourcing that cuts down your marketing and R&D and provides customers with the products and services they want; to rating and reviews on your products which customers assess and build trust so increasing purchase frequency.
The good thing about social shopping is that it also drives traffic to your retail environments by providing coupons, gift vouchers and loyalty programs on location based services as an extra for retail incentives.
You do not have to go to all lengths to sell your stuff though social commerce; thanks to Open Graph you can easily integrate it to your own e-commerce environment. Adding this social sauce will give you a load of the before mentions against low costs. You can integrate the following social platforms through the Open Graph codes; Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo, Google+, MSN, LinkedIN, AOL and MySpace.
What ingredients drive social commerce in respect to e-commerce?
- scarcity – less is more
- affinity – like minded people buying your product
- reciprocity – a payback or a favour you provide
- authority – people follow the leaders
- popularity – people follow the crowd
- consistency – one step at a time
Ask your agency what their vision is on growing your SoM, Customer Satisfaction, Sales and ROI… I assume these are the conversations you are having?
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Hi Neil,
How about the Fb stores? You see them popup, how do they hold their own compared to regular e-commerce sites? And is there a certain type of product that does better or worse in social shop / social commerce?
Regards,
Hi Vincent,
thanks for your reply!
earned awareness/ media is becoming one of the leading currencies in Social Marketing. So that also translates to Social Commerce.
Facebook is a walled garden (http://www.viralblog.com/social-search/the-walled-garden/) and if we see that +/- 35% of all traffic to commerce sites is generated by search I do not feel that F-Commerce is the holy grail. yes it will drive impulse buying, give people means to connect: but I strongly believe it should be an add on. Integrating Social to commerce is essential, but also invest in Social Search. One does not rule out the other..
The question isn’t “should we have a facebook shop?” but: “how can I build valuable relationships with my customer which drives sales, earns attention and provides insights?”
Have I answered your question?
At your service,
Neil
Oh such a nice article. A big thank you for sharing it. Really great information and thanks for the answer, this was my question too!
Nice article… I can use this for my research, but on what sources did you based these numbers?
Regards,
Tim
Hi Tim,
for this article I got my metrics from eurostat, fevad, slideshare, forrester etc.
Not one metric is the same or correct. Not from Nielsen, Forrester, Altimeter, Fevad, Eurostat or others… everyone uses their own research methods, which are (of course) fact based and good to use. But always from their research PoV.
Personally; I like to combine metrics, benchmark them and use either the average or the one that support the thesis.
I hope to have answered your question.
Have a good weekend,
Neil
Hi Neil,
Thank you for taking the time to answer my question. I have an addition to it.
As you say, FB is a walled garden, but one with 800million ppl in it..Which is an ecosystem on itself.
And that is kinda what I meant by different products. You are right about for instance cars, they will not be sold in FB shops but for instance add-ons to FB games or FB games could be directly sold and used on FB.
And with a market potential of 800million, that does not sound like a bad move for some gamedevelopers for instance(Farmville, Angrybirds, etc…).
Do you agree on that?
Regards,
Vincent
Hi Vincent,
yes I agree on the size and the opportunity of FB in it’s scale. Also that organisations should tap into that marketplace (providing that they have the right DNA), however the currency is the win-win relationship you establish. Does not necessarily mean you have to be IN facebook.
Please check out the Open Graph (integrates both worlds); in my article I also state “Social Commerce is buying where you connect and connecting where you buy…”
Check out the social integration levi’s does.
The main growing market is the entertainment market. So I fully support your tendency to game developers. I also think that gamification is the next big trend.
I’d like to finish with this final thought:
You build relationships, you can’t buy them…
Very cool item and clear insights!!