Shoppable Videos Go Mainstream with YouTube: Juicy Couture Shows the Way. Successful Social Commerce Companies? Not the Ones You Think. Much has been said about companies that have been unsuccessful using social commerce. A new guide from Internet Retailer lists many that have experienced great success. According to The 2013 Social Media 300: Ranking E-Retail’s Leaders in Social Media Marketing and Commerce, it’s SMB retailers that top the list, not giants like Wal-mart, Target and BestBuy.
Those don’t even make it into the top 100. Here’s what the leaders in social media marketing and commerce look like said IR: they are small to mid-sized web-only merchants, relatively new to online retailing, that have put social media at the forefront of their business strategies. Big budgets don’t factor in either, as nine of the top ten retailers in the guide brought in less than $30 million each in online sales in 2011.
The leaders on the list include Petflow.com at number one, followed Fab.com and Coastal Contacts respectively. For these retailers it’s not a get rich quick strategy either. Social Commerce Should Happen All Along Purchase Journey Says Moontoast Founder. Remember how Ford Motor Company launched its 2011 Explorer on Facebook instead of at the big annual Detroit auto show? Luxury carmaker Lexus recently did something similar when it debuted the new 2014 IS and IS F Sport models using a combination of Facebook ads and a 10-minute video live streamed in fans’ news feeds. According to AdWeek, 100,000 individuals watched the live video and some 600,000 had viewed it online within a few days.
Lexus utilized Page Post and Sponsored Stories ads along with custom apps developed by social commerce company Moontoast to build buzz in advance of the live event. I had an opportunity to speak with Moontoast co-founder and CIO Marcus Whitney about the campaign and asked him if he saw it fitting under the category of social commerce or the broader category of social media marketing. His answer: it was both. How does that square with your definition of social commerce? Share your thoughts in a comment. The Two Big Opportunities in Social Commerce [Presentation. So here’s a great presentation from Business Insider’s Henry Blodget on the future of social commerce.
Most incisive deck we’ve seen for a while. Lot’s of great stats – and smart insights What you need to know: Social media is a source of only a tiny proportion of e-commerce traffic (< 5%) , and yields lower conversion rates (less than 1/4 email) and smaller order sizes (less than 1/2 email)The opportunity in social commerce is to help people shop smarter (make better buying decisions) rather than drive e-commerce [traffic] from social sites. Specifically the two big social commerce opportunities are Use social to help people save moneyUse social to help people choose what to buyFor the vendor, the value of social commerce is to sell people stuff they didn’t know they wanted to buy by helping people save and choose smarter - increasingly via mobile platforms.
Simple good advice. Eight presentations on social commerce. Social commerce is a term that’s been around for a while now, and it isn’t going to go away anytime soon. But there still seems to be some confusion within the industry about what it is and what it means. I’ve dug out a handful of presentations that cover the main facets within this specific, rapidly-evolving area of e-commerce.
To clarify, social commerce isn’t just about directly selling online through social media. It’s about using social channels to enable or encourage consumers to purchase products or services, either online or offline. Equally, it’s not restricted to the obvious social suspects, such as Facebook or Twitter: social commerce can extend across ratings and reviews, through to group-buying websites.
This is something we’ve covered a lot, but I’ve often found that it’s difficult to pin down specific elements and trends. What the F**k is social commerce? The rise of social commerce Social media to social retailing The 6 dimensions of social commerce Future of retail report. Amazon goes social, launches Pages, Posts and Analytics. Is the future of commerce social? It depends on who you ask, and the answer is likely to be based on where you look.
Despite Facebook's massive audience, for instance, f-commerce has not panned out for many brands. Pinterest, on the other hand, has obvious potential. One thing is indisputable, however: brands continue to invest in their social presences, and challenges notwithstanding, many are still trying to figure out how to convert social to sales and track the process. That combination of social investment and desire to drive sales apparently hasn't gone unnoticed by online retail giant Amazon, which this week began launching its own Amazon Pages offering modeled after popular social sites. Adweek's Tim Peterson explains: As might be expected, Amazon Pages takes the most popular—and widely imitated—features from Facebook and Pinterest and wraps them in Amazon’s merchandising design. The social twist: brands have the ability to publish 140 character posts (sound familiar?)
Social Q&A – Social Commerce Done Right [Infographic. Here’s a great infographic from TurnTo, one of the leading social apps for e-commerce sites (Kiehls, Vitamin Shoppe, shoes.com…), on ‘Social Q&A’. Social Q&A is an increasingly popular e-commerce site feature that allows shoppers to ask pre-purchase product-related questions, and get them answered by customers who have already purchased the product. Astonishingly 9 out of 10 questions posed get answered answered the same day. Like other social commerce technology, social Q&A helps socialises an otherwise solitary e-commerce experience, and does so by creating connections between customers. It’s simple and smart, and refreshingly free from any techno-babble voodoo. And, according to TurnTo, it pays – for the retailer and the shopper.
We’re big advocates of social features on e-commerce sites such as Social Q&A, that allow customers to connect where they buy. Speed Summary: The Future of Retail – PSFK Report [Download. Establishing itself as the Bible of Retail Trends, PSFK has released its third annual survey of retail innovation – The Future of Retail – crammed with insights and inspiration. As you’d guess, mobile and social technology figure prominently, as do responses to the disruptive trend of ‘showrooming‘ and retail’s perennial sword of Damocles – otherwise known as Amazon. The 100+ page full report can be purchased for here for $495 – and the good guys of PSFK are offering a free downloadable 37MB – 38 page summary here. But for the time pressed, here’s what you need to know: There are two key disruptive meta-trands transforming retail: 1. THE NEW BRAND CHAMPION – connecting and collaborating with the digitally empowered consumer to drive demand with digitally amplified and accelerated word of mouth Shopper As Affiliate “Let me sell on your behalf” – People engage with other shoppers on social platforms to sell on behalf of brands.
Pen Portrait: The New Shopper. Domino’s Trials F-Commerce in UK with New Product Launch. Last Monday we noted that the popular household cleanser in the UK, Cillit Bang, had launched a Facebook exclusive pop-up store to offer its new multi-use version in advance of a nationwide launch in stores. Recently, Domino’s Pizza UK followed suit with a Facebook exclusive product launch of its own. The pizza company offered its 400,000+ Facebook fans a sneak peek of it boneless ribs, which is a new addition to its side order menu. Facebook fans were able to preview and order the dish at a discounted price seven days prior to the national launch.
Simon Wallis, sales and marketing director at Domino’s said, “We’ve now got over 400,000 fans on our UK Facebook page and to thank them for coming back to our page time and again, we wanted to give them a sneak preview of our new Boneless Ribs and enjoy them at a very special price. Our Facebook fans are very knowledgeable when it comes to our menu so we can’t wait to see what they think of this tasty new addition.” Probably the Smartest Thread You’ll Read on (Social) E-Commerce… …is over at Chris “Hunch” Dixon’s site. It’s the smartest discussion we’ve seen on the future of e-commerce, with 117 comments from industry thought leaders – including the CEOs of Fab (Jason Goldberg) and Shoply (Liad Shababo). So if you’re a business, brand or entrepreneur in (or considering) e-commerce, social or otherwise, and read just one thing this month, read this thread. And for the time-pressed, here’s the speed summary of key insights/takeaways.
Brilliant. The future is e-commerce; offline commerce will serve only two purposes: immediacy (stuff you need right away), and experiences (showroom, fun venues).But immediacy may no longer a promise for offline commerce companies as both Amazon and eBay have announced same day delivery.The role of offline lies in the value of the “showroom” and “entertainment” aspects to places like Williams Sonoma. [hr] Today’s article is sponsored by Milyoni: The Leader in Social Entertainment [hr] Brilliant. Kellogg’s Opens Pay-with-a-Tweet Pop-up Shop in Soho [Photos. We just love this – it’s social commerce for consumer brands done right.
Kellogg’s has opened a ‘Tweet Shop’ to launch its latest Special K range of Cracker Crisps in Soho, London. Visit the store during this week’s social media week and pay-with-a-tweet for your sub 100 calorie pack of sea salt and balsamic vinegar, sweet chilli or sour cream and onion flavours crisps. The Tweet Shop features a ‘tweet wall’ of shared tweets. It’s a smart way to get products into people’s hands and give them something to talk about – which is the ultimate secret to word of mouth, according to Emanauel Rosen, author of the best book on word of mouth. And why do consumer brands want word of mouth? Because word of mouth accelerates launch sales. Combined with traditional advertising, word of mouth adds credibility into the communications mix. In the words of Kellogg’s Sarah Case Smart work Kellogg’s. Storefront: How It Works from Storefront on Vimeo. How Social Commerce Works: The Social Psychology of Social Shopping.
As a social psychologist, I’m interested in how social commerce works. Not for academic reasons, but for a purely practical reason. Understanding why it makes commercial sense to help people to connect where they buy and buy where they connect provides businesses with a strategic advantage; the opportunity to reap the rewards of a powerful insight-led social commerce strategy, as opposed to merely deploying social commerce as a set of tactical tools. Jumping to the conclusion of a rather long post, I think that a psychologically informed understanding of how social commerce works points to the possibility of six particularly effective social commerce strategies.
But first the obvious. Social commerce makes commercial sense because it is good marketing, marketing with a big M that is, in the sense of Marketing as the business of solving people’s problems at a profit (as opposed to mere messaging). The Social Psychology of Social Shopping Heuristic #5: Consistency The Rule: ‘Be Consistent’ Mercedes Sells 666 cars in 8 hours with 3-point ‘Twitter’-Commerce Plan.
Here’s how to sell cars fast on Twitter. Create a special limited edition that will not be available for sale elsewhere – a Twitter exclusive.Theme and schedule the special edition around a popular calendar event (e.g. Chinese New Year)Don’t ask for full payment, just a deposit (e.g. 1.5%) That’s how Mercedes sold more than 1 car per minute (666 in 8 hours (480 minutes)) on the Chinese microblogging and Twitter-equivalent Sina Weibo for the Chinese New Year – “the year of the snake”. The results, reported in this morning’s Financial Times illustrates how sticking to the basic and elementary rules of social commerce (make it an event, make it limited, make it an exclusive) can result in sales.
Mercedes made 4% of it’s annual sales for Smart Cars just in 8 hours. What was particularly smart about the Smart sales was that Mercedes ‘de-risked’ the purchase by only processing a small deposit payment of 1.5% (1999 Rmb ($328)). But we think that’s an excuse, not a reason. Close-up – 23.05.12: Barclays, social commerce, Facebook. Barclays’ report on s-commerce has received acres of coverage and even claimed air time on Radio 4’s flagship newscast Today. The headline forecast was that s-commerce will hit £3.3bn within five years and that by 2021, 41% of us will be engaging in social shopping.
Such high level exposure and heady forecasts are bound to stir CEOs and chief marketing officers up and down the country, prompting them to ask their rank and file: “What are we doing with social commerce?” However, drilling down further into the study, it seems as if the report authors hedged their bets in coming up with the above figures. Social commerce forecast to hit £3.3bn by 2017. The social commerce market will more than double within the next five years to eventually be valued at £3.3bn, according to the latest research from Barclays. The report further forecast that 41% of all UK consumers will use social media to influence their purchase decisions by 2021, with this figure rising to 73% among 25-34 year olds.
Currently, only a minority of consumers visit social media sites to research products by reading consumer feedback (see chart below) with 70% of regular online shoppers already doing so. The Barclays study further broke down the definition of social commerce. The first definition was social channels being used as a “sales influencer”, which it currently values at £1.4bn, to eventually be valued at £3.3bn over the forecast period. The second subcategory was social being used as a “direct sales” channel, currently valued at £210m, to eventually hit £300m by 2021. More to follow. Social commerce best practices: infographic. American Express syncs with Twitter. Gimmick or new social commerce platform? Strides in social commerce have been made with Facebook and Pinterest but, until today, brands and ecommerce specialists haven't been able to crack the code when it came to Twitter. American Express and Twitter have announced they are joining forces by allowing members to sync their Amex cards with their Twitter accounts and then tweet special hashtags to make purchases.
This is not the first foray into connecting American Express member cards with social networks. They have focused on the interconnection with commerce and social since it launched its Link Like Love program with Facebook in 2011 and they have been promoting Twitter deals since last year. But is this Twitter partnership just another gimmick or something more? Starting tomorrow, American Express will be tweeting (and favoriting) deals and items that you can purchase with your American Express card through Twitter. Once you tweet and confirm with the special hashtag American Express will tweet back at you, the item is yours. Social commerce, fact or fiction: infographic. Debate: What is the future of social commerce? Can you make money from social media? The Future Of Social Commerce [SLIDE DECK] Pinterest Becomes Sales Driver for Major Home Goods Store. Social commerce growth [infographic]
How to use social proof to increase conversions.