By Craig Smith, UK country manager at ecommerce technology platform, Scayle
Across platforms like TikTok, Instagram and Youtube it’s becoming just as common for a user to be buying a product as scrolling through their friends’ holiday photos. Social commerce has become a lucrative and vibrant sector that is expected to grow beyond $2 trillion in value by 2025. Well-implemented ecommerce features within the apps of the social media giants mean that consumers can explore tailored recommendations for products and make purchases all without leaving the app.
Clearly this approach is working for social media, but is there something that ecommerce retailers can learn from it?
Social commerce – the new titan
The playbook that has made the social media giants successful is already well-known. With advanced algorithms and analytics that can effectively predict user content preferences, and design choices that make user experience seamless and rewarding, these platforms encourage users to stay active and engaged for long periods of time.
This extends to social commerce, which has allowed brands to target key demographics with an unprecedented level of precision, while extending users the convenience of never needing to switch apps or websites.
For ecommerce brands however, this can represent a mixed prospect. While social media has opened up new opportunities to increase their visibility and drive sales through a more personalised relationship with customers, it has also brought with it some key drawbacks.
Ecommerce brands that build their success on high levels of traffic to their websites are clearly losing out. If potential customers are encouraged to perform all their shopping on social media apps as opposed to visiting websites directly, these brands will lose the opportunity to manage sales, customer service and feedback themselves. Similarly, without high traffic, businesses won’t be able to gather as much first-party data about their customers, which can inform marketing strategies and business decisions.
Ecommerce needs to adapt
Clearly how consumers shop has changed. It’s for this reason that ecommerce brands need to learn how to both adapt to and learn from social commerce in order to maintain that critical competitive edge. The brands that are the most successful are ones that can build visibility through customer engagement on social – talking to potential customers directly through comments, messages, ads and influencer marketing. These strategies can be specifically tailored to drive users to first-party apps and websites.
For instance, brands can offer exclusive discounts to customers for shopping directly on their website or app, or tying certain products and promotions to having a user account. Many brands find success by nurturing a sense of exclusivity and community on their sites, through marketing and design factors like points systems. These not only drive users to apps and websites, but also builds a sense of brand loyalty that can boost sales.
How ‘retailtainment’ can help brands capture the success of social media
Ecommerce giants like Shein and Temu owe a large part of their rapid growth and success to their stand-out willingness to experiment and innovate. In addition to their extensive work with influencers and social media marketing, they have become leaders in experiential commerce, sometimes referred to as ‘retailtainment’. This has involved adapting the tactics that have made social commerce successful into their in-app experiences.
When a user goes to the Shein and Temu shopfront, the in-app experience isn’t just filled with products, but live events, competitions, rewards, point systems and an ever-expanding array of new functionality designed to entertain and engage users. In the same way that Instagram uses content to keep you looking at ads and products, these ‘retailtainment’ brands can keep users engaged, and, crucially, in the app, for long periods of time.
This gamification of ecommerce has become a hit with the younger demographic of Gen Z and millennials. There is now a large overlap between TikTok Shop users and Shein and Temu consumers because all three platforms engage in ‘retailtainment’.
Brands wanting to find success in this social media age, and capture new, younger, customer bases should seriously consider adopting these tactics. This space is still one where there is plenty of room for innovation and creativity. While brands like Shein and Temu have successfully charted their path, there are huge gaps in their strategies that other more specialist brands can exploit.
For instance, integrating video-based content and reels designed for mobile and desktop into the in-app experience, when based on a sophisticated understanding of their customer base, can be very effective. More personalised customer engagement strategies like these are the key to distinguishing one’s brand in a crowded market, as well as both driving and keeping traffic.
Live-streamed shopping events (known as ‘live shopping’) have become a powerful tool for large brands with extensive product catalogues to boost sales and consolidate customer engagement. This form of ‘retailtainment’ involves regular events featuring influencers, or brand ambassadors for those with multi-brand setups, who promote products that viewers can purchase directly through the stream. By hosting these events on their own native apps, brands can create an immersive shopping experience where customers can engage in real-time, browse product catalogues, and make purchases all from the same place.
Live shopping is an ideal scenario for product discovery and upselling. Customers can ask questions and receive immediate, personalised answers from brand ambassadors who know your catalogue from front to back, and can recommend add-on purchases by demonstrating similar products.
It’s clear that ecommerce brands must now implement new and disruptive social media strategies if they don’t want to lose out on valuable engagement from their target demographics. With consumers increasingly craving authenticity within their marketing, any brand with a sophisticated social media strategy can make themselves stand out.
Craig Smith, UK country manager at ecommerce technology platform, Scayle
