Has nobody read the memo? Social is for engagement, not direct selling. Leave it to Brands & Retailers (They've been doing it for centuries)

Inspired by a great article today by Krystal Overmyer "Why Buy Buttons Won’t Help Your Social Media Strategy (At Least for Now)" posted over on Skyword.com I felt compelled to pen this post.

In Krystal's post, she draws the conclusion that Buy Buttons have not been successful when deployed across social media and more specifically that single click direct purchase buttons on social media platforms like Pinterest, Twitter, Google and Facebook have basically not worked (so far...)Stepping back a bit (ok a lot), trade originated with human communication in prehistoric times. Trading was the main facility of prehistoric people, who bartered goods and services from each other before the innovation of modern-day currency from circa 150,000 years ago.[5]

So retailers and brands we're successfully selling their wares over thousands of years before social media came along. So it's simple, social media is for engagement and selling is for retailers and never the twain shall meet.

Hang on a minute! 'social networks' have also been around for many thousands of years. "The word "Social" derives from the Latin word socii ("allies"). It is particularly derived from the Italian Socii states, historical allies of the Roman Republic (although they rebelled against Rome in the Social War of 91-88 BC)."[2] 

"In the absence of agreement about its meaning, the term "social" is used in many different senses and regarded as a fuzzy concept, referring among other things to: Attitudes, orientations, or behaviours which take the interests, intentions or needs of other people into account (in contrast to anti-social behaviour) has played some role in defining the idea or the principle."[2] "Social networks" and word of mouth marketing have been influencing consumers purchases (originally bartering) since the dawn of time. The trade of goods and services in one form or another has taken place throughout much of human history.

First recorded usage of WhatsApp: (apparently)Captain Caveman - "Hey Rocky, Look what I picked up on Flintbay, totally stoked!, When are you going to stop by the cave and check it out?" "Cool out hunting with the lads will be over later to check it out" - Rocky

It's all about context and sequencing when it comes down to 'Buy Buttons'. Since the early days of the internet when brands came online, initially they used their web presence as a showroom to educate consumers about their products then eventually decided it might be a good idea to try and help people who had clearly demonstrated 'clear purchase intent' to find that product at retail.

Welcome to the new consumer paradigm.

Whether shopping with desktop, mobile, social or in-store, the retail experience should be one that feels less like a path to purchase and more like a first date that went really, really well. So well that the customer is already thinking of the 10th date—so well, that neither brand, nor customer, can think of being with anyone else. -  Alfredo Muccino
Chief Creative Officer Liquid Agency

The old versus the New Model

Source: The future of retail. Success at retail is about creating great experiences. Just like dating.

Alfredo Muccino Chief Creative Officer at Liquid Agency and Emily Buchholtz Brand Strategist at Liquid Agency wrote an excellent white paper on Medium titled: The future of retail. Success at retail is about creating great experiences. Just like dating. 

For any brand that remains under any illusion that they remain in control of a linear path to purchase, I'm sorry to have to inform you, but those days are well and truly over. The shift has already happened, consumers are now fully in the driving seat and they expect more from brands. A whole lot more.

Source: The future of retail. Success at retail is about creating great experiences. Just like dating.

Social networks like Facebook and pure-play online retailers like Amazon appeared to be in pole position to take over control of the consumer from brands, well that's the way it looked. However, the simple truth is that consumers are now well and truly in charge and good luck trying to grapple that control away from them anytime soon.

We're now facing into the 'Convergence of Digital and Shopper' or the intersection of where 'Media Meets Commerce' a phrase coined by Laura Henderson Global Head of Content & Media Monetization at Mondelez International.  

Source: MIVA Using a multilingual site & localisation to drive international growth

Global E-commerce is growing fast, at a time when traditional retail is basically flat in a number of categories or shrinking. Savvy brands and retailers are playing the long game, testing and learning what works, figuring out the how to win online, ways of working, new commercial retail frameworks, along with the resources and necessary investment.

“For our categories, it’s really, what’s the future of impulse? If you really think about it, 70 to 80 years ago, we created technology to drive impulse purchases, which was wire racks in the front of stores. So now, the question becomes: How do we replicate that behavior in an online world?” - Bonin Bough author of Txt Me: Your Phone Has Changed Your Life. Let’s Talk about It.(previously chief media and e-commerce officer at Mondelēz) - via  https://www.csnews.com/

This is amply demonstrated by Amazon, who are patient when It comes to proving out their investments. Amazon aggressively pursues continuous innovation across all aspects of their business.

Invest > MVP > Test > Learn > Fail > Pivot > Succeed > Graduate > Amplify > Repeat

Source: Statista.com 

Online retail is cannibalising sales in other channels, offline I hear you say? Well, in part this is true there are examples where you can clearly see a shift between online and offline but generally it's one of the biggest myths of multichannel retailing. Consumers are actually spending more with their favourite multichannel retailers, not just shifting some purchases to a different channel.

Source: Demystifying the online shopper 10 myths of multichannel retailing

You're more at risk of a more nimble competitor getting a head start as the winner takes all online. The first mover advantage that some brands have achieved versus their competitors leaves it a very costly and long exercise to play catch up even to achieve fair share versus coming anywhere close to attacking a brand that has had first mover advantage.Simply put if you're working under the impression that your current 20% offline market share is going to easily translate online once you finally start to pay attention then you're in for a very nasty surprise and its time to start taking action now before the competition is out of sight.Want to stack the odds back in your favour?.

"CPG Brand Website Visitors Spend 37% More on the Brand and 53% More on Product Category in Retail Stores"

"A study by Accenture, comScore, and dunnhumbyUSA found that visitors to CPG brand websites are valuable and frequent buyers of the brand in retail stores, completing 41 percent more transactions than non-visitors. As a result, brand websites are able to attract heavier-than-average brand buyers, who spend 37 percent more on the brand in retail stores than non-visitors. Website visitors also are also heavier buyers within a brand’s product category, spending 53 percent more category dollars than non-visitors". Read the full comScore article here

Hold on, this whole piece was Inspired by Krystal Overmyer article "Why Buy Buttons Won’t Help Your Social Media Strategy (At Least for Now)". and I just went off on a wild tangent there, or did I?Social networks, clans, packs, tribes, gatherings have been around since the dawn of time and without them, we wouldn't be here as through lack of co-operation we would have been quickly extinct.

Source: Le Moustier Neanderthals, AMNH.
Those same social networks have also been talking about, influencing and sharing the details of their purchases with their wider social network since the dawn of time. So if that's the case what's all this noise about the 'Buy Button' surely it’s a simple mechanism to facilitate the transaction?

The 'Buy Button' is the method of getting people from A to B as quickly as possible without friction or competitive distraction in order to convert that person to a sale either on a Brand shop, pure-play online retailers like Amazon, or bricks and clicks retailers like Walmart, Tesco or Carrefour. 

Source: Google image search

Brands and Retailers know how to sell products, are very good at it and put allot of time, energy, resources and investment into how they sell and social media networks don't (yet!), so why are social networks trying to force matter by trying to have the transaction happen within their platforms? Because the opportunity if they can make it happen is huge!But there are reasons why the social buy buttons (direct purchase on a social network) are not working. The current iteration of social buy buttons is in effect 'cutting out the retailer' and turning them into a basic fulfilment partner with no power to interact with and up-sell that user to a more profitable basket by getting them to add more items before heading to the checkout.For example a shopper who sees a camera on Facebook / Google / Twitter / Pinterest and wishes to purchase, clicks the One click Buy Button and the retailer ultimately gets the sale but misses out on the opportunity on that very important initial purchase to up sell them to a better model with higher margin, suggest accessories like camera bag, tripod and extra battery or memory cards.

All of a sudden a sale that would have normally delivered $519.00 to the retailer is delivering $319.00 as a result of the single click single item purchase button on the social network. Now there's a multitude of ways to fix this and fix this they shall over time but there are a number of factors which slow down progress on this front. It will simply take some time to put the required infrastructure in place by all sides of the equation to a sufficient scale where it makes sense for social networks to try and attack this opportunity again.Great brands like Apple have disrupted the whole notion of consumer acquisition, ongoing engagement and stellar support for millions of people across the globe.By making technology accessible, reliable and intuitive to use across the generational divide, they have set the bar very high for end user experience beyond the lifespan of your first purchase. 

As a result, Apple (and others) have educated to expect more (a lot more). Now we all expect brands and retailers to be joined at the hip and to not miss beat wherever, whenever and however we choose to engage with them. (Online, offline and everything in between)

It's critical for brands move away from a one size fits all broadcast marketing approach and towards increased engagement, producing great content regularly at scale across all digital 'moments' a consumer chooses to have with you before, during and after purchase. If done right you have an opportunity to build a long-lasting profitable relationship for all parties.

“The strategy is to try to ensure that in every digital touchpoint, consumers find a clickable path to purchase,” said Tosolini. “Wherever shoppers are online—on the brand site or the community site—there’s an opportunity for them to buy.” Alex Tosolini SVP at Kroger, (previously SVP Global e-Business at P&G)  CPG's Digital Conundrum Turning Digital Shoppers into Digital Buyers - eMarketeer

'Buy Now' buttons placed when in context and relevant (sequencing) across the brand digital assets (Brand Pages, Social, Display, Video, CRM, etc) present a big opportunity to get millions of digital interactions closer to a point of purchase. That purchase may or may not happen directly, may happen through a different channel, offline versus online but by capturing the consumers intent when they engage with a buy button and click on a retailer you unlock precious data that can be used to better serve the consumer online, offline and everywhere in between.

“Consumers come to your site specifically to learn about your product,” said Angela Edwards, vice president of marketing and consulting services for etailing solutions. “You have to make it as easy as possible to buy that product. Otherwise, you can definitely lose people between research and purchase.” CPG's Digital Conundrum Turning Digital Shoppers into Digital Buyers - eMarketeer

Under the hood, the effort necessary to present, execute and track out to conversion 'moments of purchase' across the ever-growing number of digital touch points and connected devices is significant.

Source: An explosion of internet connected devices (via ucreative.com)

The next time you look down and see the humble 'Buy Button' smiling back up at you, remember it's merely the tip of the iceberg versus what it takes to put it there and make it work reliably at scale. 

Source: Pcwallart

Anyone can slap a Buy Button on one product page, a piece of digital media or video but try doing that for millions of interactions with accurate and up to date availability in lots of countries for thousands of retailers, then it's a whole new ball game.

As more and more media moves towards programmatic, the opportunity for a 1:1 conversion with consumers presents both great opportunity and great risk for brands if not executed well. The wrong result served to thousands if not millions of users can prove costly in terms of lost sales and brand reputation.

Niall O'Gorman is Chief Strategy Officer at ChannelSight a digital path to purchase startup which helps brands move the act of purchase (acquisition) and more importantly repurchase (retention) closer to the consumer across all digital touch points.

ChannelSight is headquartered in Dublin with offices in London and Zurich. Powering the path to purchase for great brands like Mondelez, Philips, Bosch, Pepsi, Duracell and others. Helping to turn brand digital shoppers into digital buyers in forty-five countries for thousands of retailers around the globe.Interested to learn more? Email [email protected] call +44 207 060 5733 or visit https://channelsight.com/ Also by Niall O'Gorman