Social Commerce – An overview
Social Commerce can be defined as an emerging trend in ecommerce that encompasses the usage of social media, which helps or tries to influence online buying and/or selling of goods and/or services. For the past 5 years, this terminology is gathering momentum and in recent future, it is sure to make tidal changes in the way businesses are influenced, just like TV advertisements created a revolutionising impact on the purchase behaviour when they were first aired. In a very basic sense, it is all about adding a component called “word of mouth” into the world of e-commerce, as IBM rightly phrased it.
Social commerce is not just about creating a means to purchase online through a social networking website, but also comprises of mechanisms by which, a buyer recommends a product (like the one we see in Amazon), a website, where we can create a wishlist of our favourite songs or books and share it with our friends etc.,
Nowadays, we can see a few million business firms setting up their pages in facebook all around the world. Arguably, Facebook has emerged as the most popular social networking website and many are using the term Facebook commerce (F-Commerce) and Social Commerce interchangeably. Not to forget, YouTube, LinkedIn and twitter all play a significant role in the arena of social commerce.
Gone are the days, when people expected the description of the product and price in the retailers’ websites. They are now more informed than ever before and they want to take informed decisions. They are looking for websites that give user reviews, ratings, recommendations by previous users, so on and so forth. These components are also called “Social Plug-ins”. We are also seeing the emergence of social reward programs in the form of social media powered loyalty programs. There are companies like Lockerz.com & Mylikes.com that run based on this business model. Lockerz for example is a social commerce platform, where members are rewarded with points (Called PTZ) for introducing their friends to their favourite fashion, electronics and technology brands, as well as music, videos and more. Lockerz Members earn PTZ by answering daily questions, watching videos, listening to music, inviting their friends to buy their favourite brands, purchase digital assets etc., PTZ are then used to lower the prices of merchandise in the Lockerz Boutiques.
Companies are trying innovative ways to keep the customers more engaged and interactive in the whole process of shopping online. The key lies in bringing the potential buyer to the company’s website through some means and making him or her get attracted towards the way the information about the product or service is presented. It should be in such a way that the person gets all the information he requires before buying that product. Already, Social Commerce has made significant inroads into the world of ecommerce, but we all hope that the best is yet to come.
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