This effect starts in China, is growing rapidly in the United States, is already being felt in many parts of Europe, and we will soon see it gaining ground in Mexico. Events on TikTok, live streams on Instagram, invitations to try products on Snapchat, are some of the cases that are already generating flows, comments, trends and purchase conversions.
Selling through electronic and digital media, as we understand it today, begins with the World Wide Web (now known as Web 1.0). Later, the best known or most developed cases in the world of electronic commerce are Amazon. eBay and PayPal. For 25 years this ecosystem has developed at great speed. We will see very soon the next trend with Social eCommerce.
Social eCommerce is that products can be explored through digital social media. It also allows you to complete transactions through those social media and different content platforms. A lot of this is being done in an App. This trend removes a lot of the traditional friction from the buying process, creates a valuable shopping experience and offers opportunities for brands to be of greater interest to their consumers.
This trend in the United States is forecast to grow from 3.4% to 5.3% of total eCommerce between 2020 and 2025, according to an analysis by McKinsey & Company. Globally, growth will be even greater.
Social eCommerce represents a paradigm on the shopping experience. Consumers have the opportunity to interact directly with brands; those of mass consumption, have the opportunity of a much more interactive and personalized experience. In addition to communicating the brand’s message, the experience is more entertaining and fun, engaging the consumer. Through this strategy, product features and benefits can be highlighted. Some brands already use influencers and celebrities to demonstrate their products in a more personalized way.
In China, 30% of sales conversions have been achieved through Social eCommerce, something like ten times more than the now traditional digital model. Furthermore, the effect is such that the client’s portfolio share has doubled. Customer wallet share is how much of your available money you spend on the same brand. Much of what this entails is loyalty and a sense of community because the consumer perceives himself as part of the group. The consumer’s relationship with the brand becomes highly emotional, something difficult to achieve with any strategy.
The main platforms that are already using Social eCommerce are Pinterest, Instagram Live Shopping, TitkTok Shopping, YouTube Shopping, Twitter Shops, Twitch, Meta and Amazon Live. In many cases, these are only approximations to better understand this trend that is so relevant that it should be ignored. Some, like McKinsey & Co., point out that its potential is such that it could become the most relevant channel for brands, connecting with more specific consumer segments, some call it hyper-segmentation.
What is convenient now in Mexico is to explore the concept and the strategy. It should be taken into account that the way of thinking and using the different applications on the Internet seems to be standardizing. Each market may have cultural, social, legal, or other variabilities to consider. Consumers in Mexico accept more and more rapidly the use of Apps and different platforms to buy online. The development of home delivery of products, also known as the last mile, has become extremely competitive. Bandwidth presents strong advances including stability for use on mobile phones. The payment systems and the digital cash register have a good level of sophistication. Social eCommerce is one more strategy in the marketing mix that each company will evaluate to attract customers, keep them, make them loyal, participate more in their portfolio and segment their consumers more punctually.