Social commerce, forecasted to generate $1.2 trillion in sales by 2025, is the evolution of social media advertising for brands on social platforms.
Browser privacy changes continue to make it harder to track consumers across the web, limiting the effectiveness of existing advertising models. But social commerce offers a new channel for customer acquisition and engagement that empowers brands to retain ownership of customer data, build long-term brand loyalty and improve the user experience.
To successfully incorporate social commerce into your brand’s omnichannel strategy, you’ll need the right technology to deliver an end-to-end shopping experience to consumers.
How and why social commerce works
It’s the very nature of social media—powered by recommendations from the people and brands users trust, which breeds a sense of discovery—that makes social commerce work.
Social commerce provides a direct path-to-purchase within the platform or app on which consumers are already spending their time. Formats blending entertainment and shopping, like livestreams and virtual try-ons, turn coveted content into shoppable experiences, enabling brands to drive awareness, engagement and purchase, all at once.
Livestream selling has become a popular form of social commerce thanks to its wild success in China, particularly on its Alibaba Taobao Live platform. The format blends an authentic, live entertainment factor with fast, one-click purchase options. Livestream commerce sales are now expected to make up 10-20% of all ecommerce by 2026. Of brands surveyed in a recent report, The State of Social Commerce, shoppable livestreams were the most sought after social commerce tactic at 63%.
As social commerce formats and functionalities are maturing, so are consumer expectations for the digital brand experience—from initial engagement all the way through to physical product delivery. Shoppers expect the commerce experience on social channels to align with that of every other ecommerce channel, offering seamless transactions that end with fast, convenient product delivery.
The brands that will win in social commerce are those that view omnichannel as a combination of all customer touchpoints, able to facilitate an efficient shopping experience, no matter the sales channel.
Why tech-enabled infrastructure is imperative
To drive performance and product fulfillment within social commerce channels—meaning that the item purchased via livestream makes it to the customer’s doorstep quickly and seamlessly—brands are pursuing partners that offer the integrated technology and capabilities to deliver the fast, efficient delivery their customers are accustomed to.
A fully integrated fulfillment partner will help blend the digital and physical experience for customers, providing real-time visibility into inventory and order management across every channel, incorporated within a distributed, connected fulfillment network that enables prompt and cost-effective delivery.
A distributed network means inventory is optimally allocated and fulfilled closer to end customers, reducing shipping cost and time in transit. Connected by software integrated with every sales channel and shopping cart, brands can offer the same omnichannel ecommerce fulfillment experience to customers no matter where they’ve made their purchase.
With all ecommerce brands beholden to the Amazon-effect, tech-enabled fulfillment is key to meeting consumer expectations for delivering merchandise quickly, efficiently and affordably.
For Proper Wild, a brand of energy supplements focused on clean and simple ingredients, “a technology-first fulfillment partner is essential to ensuring DTC customers receive products promptly and consistently, no matter the sales channel,” says CEO and co-founder, Vincent Bradley.
What to look for in a partner
End-to-end solutions like WPP’s Everymile are emerging to help brands execute holistic ecommerce strategies, and Omnicom launched its Supply Chain IQ Score to provide real-time inventory data to inform and optimize media spend.
Marketing and logistics are increasingly converging as brand operators recognize the benefit of frictionless transactions and fast delivery in maintaining customer loyalty and earning new brand customers.
When evaluating fulfillment partners to support the integration of social commerce into an omnichannel strategy, consider the following features:
Integrated inventory and order management: Almost half (47%) of respondents to The State of Social Commerce survey said they would invest more in social commerce if integrated inventory and order management systems were more readily available. Centralizing inventory and orders in one easily accessible dashboard reduces the chances of misalignment, out-of-stocks or other errors that impact the customer experience.
Two-day or less delivery offerings: Customers have come to expect Amazon-like delivery offerings at every ecommerce transaction. Brands need at least three fulfillment centers to offer two-day delivery nationwide. To offer one-day delivery, they’ll need at least 10 locations. A flexible network means fulfillment locations can be added, removed or changed as demand increases, without interruption to existing operations.
Real-time visibility and insights: Every leader, in every industry, needs accurate, accessible data to succeed. Real-time access to inventory and order data equips brand operators with the data they need to make informed decisions at any given moment. The ability to retain customer insights, including product trends, churn rate, lifetime value and more, is core to ecommerce success, empowering brand operators to understand, plan for and better market to their core audiences.
The shift from social advertising to social commerce is imminent, and for forward-thinking brands, it can be as simple as engaging the right partner that enables omnichannel success.
With an omnichannel fulfillment platform in place, your time is freed to focus on the fun stuff—executing highly engaging, entertaining campaigns that meet consumers where they are.
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Ben Eachus is CEO and co-founder of Flowspace, the software powering ecommerce fulfillment for brands. Ben was an early employee at The Honest Company, where he led supply chain operations, and he founded Flowspace to help brands meet their customers’ post-purchase expectations in the real world.
