Social commerce is a subsection of ecommerce which uses social media platforms to initiate or even conduct the buying and selling process. Elements such as online communities, social advertising and user ratings all form part of the facilitation and success of online shopping. Who knew that social media would hold so much spending power in the online world! These days, almost every business has some form of social media presence to promote their products and more and more businesses are using social media as a platform to sell their items too.

So why is this blog post important and why should you continue reading? Well, the benefits of social commerce are worth it. This blog post will delve into the four main benefits of social commerce for your business, whether traditional or online.

1. Access to reviews and feedback

Are you interested to know your customers’ views and opinions regarding your product or service? Social media are the perfect platform for this; because you can use them to advertise your products or services, sell your products or services, and get the feedback. Shoppers will surely tell you if they like your wares or not. They love to discuss the purchase and give their opinions. This provides the business with the perfect opportunity to react immediately and give personalised customer support to resolve the issue (if the feedback is negative).

2. A complement to online shopping

Social media platforms are the perfect complement to online shopping. Many businesses include a call to action within their social media posts to encourage purchases, one of them being “shop now”. The posts can include physical address of a traditional store, a link to the business’s ecommerce site or a link to the purchasing outlet on the social platform itself. When you bear in mind that younger generations have a strong presence on social media, think about the impact this can have on the number of social media purchases, which will ultimately lead to an increase in overall purchases.

3. Purchases become an online conversation

Making purchases through or with the help of social media platforms can become like a social conversation. Shoppers can ask friends and family for their opinions on social media before making a purchase, whether online or offline. Then they make the actual purchase and post pictures, add a review and start a conversation about the product, ultimately prompting others to join in and give their views. All this can be done on one or multiple social media platforms of your choice.

4. It works, check your revenue

If you ever had any doubts, think again. The power of social commerce is real and it is increasing, what with more and more consumers acquiring smartphones  and accessing social media more and more frequently.

So, it’s definitely worth your while to consider implementing social commerce within your business, whether traditional or online.