Why Should Brands Focus On Social Commerce?

The widespread availability of the internet and e-commerce has completely transformed how brands operate and sell their products. One particular tool that has become popular and essential for brands to thrive in this digital world is social commerce.

What is Social Commerce?

Social commerce is basically the integration of social media platforms and e-commerce, where brands can leverage social media platforms to sell their products and increase their reach.

In social commerce, the entire shopping experience, from product search to checkout, happens on a social media app or platform instead of a website or mobile app. After making the purchase, users can return to their app and continue with their scrolling or whatever they were doing.

Currently, multiple social media apps have built-in native social commerce features available, including Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, Snapchat, and Pinterest, to help brands sell more of their products and widen their audience.

The Rise of Social Commerce

In the past few years, social commerce has been on the rise, especially after the pandemic. It is expected that social commerce sales will only continue to increase in years to come, as more and more people start to make a purchase directly from social media platforms. By 2025, social commerce sales are expected to reach around $80 billion, which is around 5 percent of total US e-commerce.

Why Brands Should Focus On Social Commerce

With the growth of social media platforms like Instagram and websites like Chatroulette, it has become more important than ever for brands to focus on social commerce to stay in the competition. Below, we have discussed some reasons that explain why you should try social commerce at least once.

A Social Shopping Experience for Customers

Social commerce makes the whole experience of buying stuff more enjoyable for users. Compared to a typical e-commerce buying experience, social commerce makes the experience much more interactive. People can directly share the products that they want to buy with their friends, consult with friends about whether they should buy a product or not, read the reviews of other users, write their own reviews, and interact directly with brands. Users who enjoy the social aspect of shopping are more likely to make purchases through social media, as social commerce does not miss any of the social aspects of shopping.

Streamlined Shopping

Social commerce makes the whole process of buying products streamlined for customers. With social commerce, customers see the product, like it, click it, and buy it. The unnecessary friction associated with e-commerce shopping is removed by social commerce, making it easier for customers to make purchases.

Customers can make a purchase directly from the place where they discover the product without having to go anywhere. Social commerce removes unnecessary steps of discovering the product, visiting the website, adding the product to a shopping cart, and filling in their credit card info. It brings shopping right to social media, so customers can go directly to the checkout. Once they are done making a purchase, they can continue scrolling from where they left off.

Has A Lot of Potential

Compared to other forms of advertising and marketing, social commerce is relatively less crowded and has a lot of potential to generate income for brands. In the US alone, social commerce sales crossed the $35 billion mark in 2021, and it is expected that by the year 2025, this number will be around $80 billion.

Customers are already hanging out on social media platforms, and it makes sense for brands to leverage these platforms and bring their goods and services to them. Customers are already searching for goods and services on social media platforms, so why not give them what they are looking for?

Millennials and Gen Z Like to Shop on Social Media

If your target audience is the age group from 18 to 34 years, you are in luck because this age group is already on these social platforms. Social media platforms like Instagram, Omegle, Facebook, and Pinterest are the places where Millennials and Gen Z are already hanging out. They are just waiting to encounter products while scrolling and make purchases.

According to Statista, around 50% of internet users in the age group of 18-34 made a purchase on any social media platform. This figure shows that if your target demographic lies in the age group of 18-34, you can make some serious money through social commerce.