Noticed that Amazon moved its search bar to the bottom of the app?

It might have something to do with #socialcommerce ?- this is similar to a #PinDuoDuo feature going back a few years - to encourage people to browse online (like they do in store) rather than search for specific things.

We highlight 3 learnings from our conversations with our growing list of brand partners, and from the Lead Innovation Summit held in New York July 12 and 13th 2023 organized by Noah Gellman

1) “Look down, and look East”:?Social commerce is fundamentally mobile based, hence “look down” and some of the most impactful innovations (and case studies in adoption) have come from China. The Chinese e-commerce approach over the last decade has been systematically dynamic in two ways:?

• Taking a #mobilefirst experience to shopping (versus an omni channel or an extension to brick and mortar, which is more traditional in the West)
• A rapid and extensive set of #partnerships between brands, digital payments, social media, gaming, messaging, videos, and live streaming companies.?

This requires investment in technology, time and integration resources. Retailers and brands we speak with highlight the need to break down silos in product development, demand prediction, inventory planning, sales channel integration / optimization etc.?

The challenge?is that brands have little room and budget to add more to their technology stacks - for more dashboards, and expensive / time consuming integrations. They are looking for immediate and clear ROIs on any investments they make in technology or partnerships.

2) Converting time scrolling into dollars:?Social commerce is estimated to be somewhere between $80 and $110 billion by 2025, about 5% of all e-commerce sales. At first glance that seems paltry, relative to #Amazon’s 38% of total e-commerce market share today.?

• Consumers spend 55 mins a day on #tiktok and 48 mins a day on #youtube . Call to actions such as “Try it on” or “Swipe to buy now” can convert interest to purchases.
• 38% of all adults have purchased a product on social media, more than half of Gen Z and millennials have done so.?
• TikTok announced a plan?to bring shopping directly into the video app

The challenge: commensurate with the explosion of social commerce, is the Cost of Acquisition #cac - converting time spent online to dollars means ads (in one way or another), which means attribution cost. HubSpot and 普华永道 ?reported?that a third of customers don’t trust ads, and another third don’t understand the offering. Between iOS 14.5 and the explosion of social media, the Cost-per-Click (#cpcs ) have?increased 23% YoY.?

3) There is more to social commerce than the top-line:?Social commerce unlocks a treasure trove of #data . Our brand partners tell us that much of it is siloed in marketing, and predominantly used for top line growth. We believe there’s more here - a lot more - using the same data to boost the bottom line.?

• Using your data for demand prediction and inventory management: traditional online and physical store data is binary (whether an item was bought or not) - social commerce data highlight intent before it translates to demand. Clearer views of demographics, preferences, and behavior, brands in the hands of merchandise teams, product development teams, and supply chain planners can release enormous cash through increased inventory turns, lower markdowns, and lower #logistics costs.
• Microtargeting, rather than influencing, shifts the conversation from “trying to find” buyers for one's goods, to “making goods that consumers indicate (albeit implicitly) that they want”. We see the context as the key here —?brands that can best understand how users view and interact with the product will ultimately be the biggest winners.