E-commerce Is social commerce revolutionizing online retail?
Will social commerce take root in the West as it has in Asia? Kim Kardashian West entered the world of Chinese influencers right on time for Singles’ Day 2019. She took part in a live stream with Viya, a Chinese influencer with more than nine million followers, and in only a few minutes sold 15,000 bottles of her perfume.
Users on social media channels have more and more opportunities to order products in just a few clicks. According to Instagram, about 130 million members tap on products in shopping posts every month.
This has resulted in almost every social media network attempting to incorporate a shopping function over the past year with a view to expanding the value chain and simplifying the customer journey.
Will social shopping take root?
An emphatic yes! It can be assumed that customers will increasingly focus on only a few apps while expecting that the functions of these apps will be extended accordingly. These functions include shopping functions.
In contrast to users in Asia, where almost everyone relies on mobile phones, users in this country are less consistent, happily switching between their smartphone and computer.The Chinese super apps nevertheless show how users are linked by a variety of services in their own universe.
Shoppertainment the road to high revenue?
The term “Shoppertainment” (or sometimes “Entertainmerce”) is often used to describe the combination of entertainment and commerce as represented by live streaming in China and, increasingly, South East Asia. Unlike in the West, where it’s used for news, games and other forms of entertainment, live streaming in China and South East Asia serves as a platform for presenting and selling products.
The armada of live hosts in China played a key role in the huge increase in revenue during Singles’ Day 2019. Alibaba rival JD.com, China’s second-biggest Internet retailer, began its Singles’ Day campaign on 1 November. According to Marketing Interactive, they reached a public some 36 times bigger than in 2018, generating five times the total revenue of the previous year.
Video: How to Livestream – China Style.Source: Alizila
Video: China’s billion-dollar shopping obsession.Source: BEME News
When you see how successful home shopping is on TV, you can reasonably assume that very similar sales models will also take root online.
Social media platforms are better at selling
Social media users are particularly online-savvy and are open to spontaneous and impulse purchases. Virtual dialogues provide companies with greater customer interaction and increased revenue. According to the study entitled “Social media in commerce – importance and comparative performance of sectors” conducted by IFH Köln in 2018, the users of social media platforms accounted for almost 90 percent of all online orders. In this respect, social shopping is also a key driver of mobile commerce. By 2021, it will account for 53.9 percent of all e-commerce revenue.
Social commerce is thus a major sales channel of the future. Retailers who have already begun to test the networks might already have stolen a march on their rivals.
The challenge is to offer platform users genuine added value in order to trigger the purchasing reflex.
- IFH Köln: Social Media im Handel – Bedeutung und Performancevergleich von Branchen (only in German)
- Aioma: Zahlen und Fakten zu Mobile Commerce 2019 (Schweiz, Europa und Welt) (only in German)
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