Social commerce, unlike e-commerce, does not provide brands with a direct line to their customers. However, consumers and retailers both benefit from having access to a unified platform where products can be researched and purchased.
Social e-commerce, made through social media sites like TikTok, Instagram and Amazon Live, may soon catch on in the West after its popularity in China.
As per Reuters, social shopping and online sharing are blending and live social networking is finding audiences outside of China.
Amazon Inspire was launched by Amazon seeing the upcoming social commerce trend in December 2022. Inspire is a new in-app shopping feed that’s personalised with shoppable photos and videos tailored to one’s selected interests and engagement.
The trend is backed up by the fact that social media advertising is also growing at around 30 percent per year as per reports which means that the revenue from live online shopping is increasing.
Similar findings were published in October by McKinsey which stated that purchasing directly through social media platforms is a central component of e-commerce and that the United States is now ideally positioned to experience similar growth.
Over US $ 37 billion worth of goods and services were purchased in the United States via social-commerce channels in 2021. By 2025, experts predict that number will rise to US $ 80 billion.
Mckinsey’s report also suggested that rates can reach 30 percent when influencers promote products via livestream shopping events. This is as much as ten times higher than the conversion rates of standard e-commerce sites.
Brands are increasingly capitalising on social shopping as a new source of revenue as consumers spend more time than ever before on their various digital and social media platforms.
