The Future of Social Commerce

 “Name the best #marketingtrends you've seen so far in 2016.” Sure, that's easy. I'd like to talk about social commerce and the shift we are seeing in Retail and ecommerce. 

How digital is influencing brick-and-mortar Retail is a fascinating topic. How social media influences Ecommerce is also very relevant to the omnichannel Retail reality. Increasingly, retail sales will become a hybrid of these 3 channels. 

• Physical brick-and-mortar Retail (B&M)
• Ecommerce and online shopping 
• Social commerce (as referrals or buys directly via social media)

While social commerce didn't grow as some expected it to in 2015, there's little doubt it will from 2015-2020 as visual marketing goes more mainstream as Retail adapts itself better to the digitally native (Millennial) consumer. 

• This is old data, but representative of the rise of social commerce by channel. 

Data from 529k store orders via Shopify. 

Pinterest Half Life is 3.5 Months 

• Pinterest was 2nd to Facebook and referred 13% of traffic in Shopify's amazing study. 

Compare this to the half life of Twitter (5 min) and Facebook (80 min), we have to then conclude that Pinterest is a longer term strategy for more sustainable traffic. We already know how amazing Pinterest targets the female demographic and Millennial Moms. 

What the heck is Polyvore?

Polyvore is a community-powered social commerce website headquartered in the Silicon Valley, California. Community members curate products into a shared product index, and use them to create image collages called "Sets". Sound familiar? Founded in 2007, they are doing quite well if the above infographic is any indication. 

How Mobile Shopping is Changing Retail 

Getting benchmarks on the growth of ecommerce in 2015, you begin to see the trend in Retail towards more digital influence on retail sales. 

The face of Ecommerce has evolved quickly in the last 20 years, expect it to speed up even more in 2016 and onwards: 

Top Performing Verticals via Facebook

Rewind a few years ago and still today, the majority of traffic originates from Facebook, I was curious to see which retail verticals were typical: 

• As one would expect Sports, Pet, Jewelry, Apparel, Food and Home perform fairly well. 
• With the advent of Instagram and Pinterest in popularity, I'm sure they have eaten into Facebook's dominance.

Polyvore Like Platforms 

The new kid on the block are these hybrid sites that combine elements of mobile commerce with social media. They are if you will, natural evolutions of Pinterest alternatives. I'm no expert in mobile shopping, but I'm a huge fan of Wanelo. 

1- Wanelo 

2- Etsy 

3- Da Wanda

4- Bonanza 

5- Aftcra 

6- Rakuten 

What are your impressions of these and which is your favourite such app? 

The New Era

With big box retail struggling to keep up with mobile and social commerce, we can definitely say it's disrupting Retail to some extent. What are the obvious factors?

• Digital natives use mobile purchasing and do click and brick and brick and click in their buying journey. 

Top Performers 

What mobile commerce facilitates to some extent in Retail, is the disruptive speed of customer acquisition. This is a metric that's fun to watch: 

What else do they do?

What Can We Do As Retailers 

So lastly some actionable tips to keep up. For digital natives and scommerce, it's less clicks and easier buys on mobile apps and less "taps". 

1- Create a frictionless & seamless omnichannel customer experience 

2- Create consumer driven content community and peer to peer marketing initiatives

3- Build best-in-class consumer engagement strategies and marketing campaigns that are personalized 

4- Blend content, commerce, inspiration and education tailored to your retail industry vertical

I hope this article gave you a helpful overview of how mobile social commerce is changing Retail. This is a #marketingtrends contribution for Retail & Ecommerce. You can follow my articles here.