There’s a shift taking place in the world of eCommerce with more businesses flocking to social media to get more orders.

And why not? Social media is where shoppers are spending most of their time nowadays. Platforms like Facebook and Instagram are brimming with customers just waiting to be enticed. They’re practically a revolving door for shoppers, with an endless stream of users coming and going round the clock.

Studies back up this trend. It’s been revealed that time spent on social media and shopping frequency are directly related. So chances are, if you get visitors to your social media pages to take an interest in your products, you’re going to get orders.

Make no mistake: social commerce is the new norm. Wondering what kickstarted it all? Keep reading and maybe you’ll realize that you too should jump on the social commerce train.

Rising Customer Acquisition Cost

The increase in customer acquisition costs is one of the main drivers of social commerce growth. This means that more merchants are turning to social media because it’s getting more expensive to convert prospects into customers.

Basically, merchants are getting less return on investment for advertising and marketing spend, as well as overhead costs related to sales and marketing. For instance, carrying out targeted ads has become more expensive due to emerging privacy updates and data protection regulations that make it harder to track individual users’ data.

That’s why it makes sense to target low-hanging fruit on social media. Your customers are already on platforms like Facebook and Instagram. Leveraging this existing market would take a lot less effort and deliver results faster.

The goal is to drive more engagement through your posts and encourage them to make purchases directly through your social media sales channels.

Intense Competition

The saturated state of eCommerce marketplaces and third-party delivery apps makes it difficult for businesses to set themselves apart from the competition.

Convincing consumers to buy from your store is already a tall order. But if you’re on these platforms, you have to capture the attention of buyers that have hundreds and maybe even thousands of other choices available to them. There’s a big chance that your business might get lost in the background with many others fighting for dominance.

This is why you as a business owner should not be contented with simply existing on these platforms. Your mission should be to own your customers. You should use these intermediaries as a way to make your brand known and scoop up prospects.

For this reason, you’re better off tapping customers that are within reach on social media. If you have great products at good prices, you’re already on the right track! The only thing you have to work on is building brand familiarity and loyalty.

This is especially true if you’re a new brand. The first thing you have to do is to make people appreciate the value of your brand by getting the word out. Social media platforms are a good place to start.

‍

New Products to Engage and Sell to Customers

With new products needing to be sold, merchants have to get creative. Social media offered merchants just that: a place to show off their products and connect to customers interactively.

In recent years, there’s been a live selling movement. Live video streaming tools provided by Facebook gave merchants a new means of selling other than your typical selling approach.

And as merchants shifted to this method of selling, so did customers. Research on new trends amid the COVID-19 pandemic revealed that for most consumers, the best journey is no journey at all. Customers wanted to make purchases from the comfort of their homes—fast.

It was through live selling of products like thrift store clothes that many Filipinos were able to survive the pandemic. This approach is akin to an auction where customers race to claim items as merchants show them in real-time. It’s a fun experience for both merchants and purchase-hungry customers.

Live selling was so prominent that even big companies used Facebook Live to launch new products such as flagship phones.

This is only the beginning. The momentum of social commerce is projected to grow much stronger moving forward. With more and more businesses making the transition, social commerce will likely take up a bigger portion of the overall retail pie chart.

‍

To learn how you can adapt to this new trend, stay tuned for an upcoming blog series on future-proofing your business, where we’ll be sharing tips and advice on how you can ensure your business' longevity.

We also strongly recommend that you join our growing Facebook Community to be regularly updated on our latest blog posts and be surrounded by like-minded individuals like you that are looking to grow their business. Join here!