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One trend that is set to impact eCom-Retail is the rise of social commerce, which will continue to blend social media experiences with shopping. Platforms like Instagram and Facebook have already made strides in this area, but by 2024/2025, we expect to see even more sophisticated integration, such as live shopping events and direct purchases from user-generated content
Marc Bishop, Director of Wytlabs.
We’re stepping into a world where every swipe, like, and share is a potential sale waiting to happen. This isn't futuristic thinking anymore. It's the hype and reality of social commerce in 2024. The boundaries between the concepts of shopping and social media are fast disappearing. And, platforms like YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook are leading it by creating spaces where browsing transitions seamlessly into instant shopping. According to EMARKETER's June 2023 projection, US adults will spend 11.4% of their daily media time and 17.9% of their digital media time on social platforms in 2024.
Along with these increased numbers, it can be easily said that there is increased hype for this new way of buying online. These platforms create a space for social commerce, offering new shopping features and dynamic ways to engage customers directly within the app, which enhances the user journey from discovery to purchase.
So, let’s dive deeper into our blog, and discover some interesting stats and trends that paint a fuller picture of the current landscape and future potential of social commerce.
Understanding Social Commerce
Social commerce is the integration of e-commerce directly into social media platforms. It enables businesses to sell products and services directly through social media networks, allowing users to make purchases without leaving the platform. This approach leverages the social aspects of the internet—such as sharing, liking, and commenting—to facilitate shopping experiences directly within social networks.
The main features of social commerce include:
- Product Discovery and Promotion: Brands use their social media profiles to promote products through posts, stories, and ads.
- Shoppable Posts: These are social media posts that allow users to click on products featured in images or videos to view details and complete a purchase.
- Seamless Checkout: Some platforms have integrated checkout systems, so users can complete purchases without navigating away from the social media site.
- Customer Engagement and Interaction: Brands can interact directly with customers through comments, live streams, and other social features, enhancing the shopping experience and providing immediate customer service.
Social commerce is a rapidly growing field as brands recognize the power of combining social interaction with digital shopping, thus creating a more integrated and engaging consumer experience.
Social Commerce Stats and Trends to Know
The Expanding Universe of Social Commerce with Platform Innovations
Social commerce is where customers can browse products and complete purchases using social media and content production platforms. The concept of social commerce is growing fast and changing how brands connect with people and reorganize shopping. It’s a big shift in how we buy and sell online, taking place across many social media platforms.
While in eCommerce, the user is redirected to an external website, in social commerce the purchase experience happens directly on social media platforms. This method reduces the extra step needed in the purchasing process and therefore, has the potential of increasing the conversion rates. According to a recent study, social media today accounts for 14% of all online shopping. Similar to making a straight purchase from a big-box store, deliverapp, or DTC store, social commerce is now set as another channel for users to shop from. Rather than completely being a substitute to eCommerce, social commerce actually serves as an exciting complementary channel for brands within their channel strategies. It is an undeniable hype. Yet, eCommerce businesses still heavily invest in their flagship stores, relying on detailed data points provided by their customers on their “owned platforms” (as opposed to the rented platforms of social media) at every step to better understand and serve their customers.
TikTok’s Dominance
TikTok is definitely the driving force behind the social commerce wind, by capturing the younger demographic's attention, with a significant portion of Gen Z beginning their product searches on the platform. However, recent developments regarding potential bans in the U.S. pose a future threat to its growing influence. TikTok's future is now even more uncertain as a result of the social media company’s lawsuit against the US government over a rule that would have required the app's Chinese parent company, ByteDance, to sell it or risk being banned nationwide.
The integration of AI and augmented reality (AR) across these platforms is also setting a new standard for interactive shopping. These technologies help make shopping more engaging by allowing users to visualize products in their own space or try them on virtually. But it also helps in making more informed purchasing decisions, particularly in the fashion and beauty sectors.
For example, Instagram and Facebook have added new features that turn these networks into dynamic places to shop. On Instagram, you can see a product in a post or story and get inspired by it. And this makes shopping spontaneous and easy, just like scrolling through photos. According to Instagram, 70% of consumers use it to look for their next purchase.
TikTok is pushing this even further by blending videos with shopping. This is perfect for younger people, especially Gen Z who love quick and fun videos. They can now find and buy products right in the middle of watching something entertaining. Remarkably, TikTok is the first place that 43% of Gen Z viewers look for products online. What’s more interesting is that many of them start their searches directly on platforms like TikTok instead of traditional search engines and it is expected that 39.5 million people in the US alone will be TikTok buyers by 2026.
In the light of these, major retail brands are also embracing social commerce as an additional sales channel. For example, Zara has expanded its live shopping experiments to Europe and the US, following its successful implementation in China. While it is still relatively early, especially in the western countries, this move highlights the growing trend of integrating shopping experiences directly into social media platforms, enabling consumers to purchase products in real-time during live events.
Even though TikTok seems like it is dominating the search engine platforms on product search, Douyin, a short-form video platform based in China, is expected to generate around 200 billion US dollars in sales by 2024, which makes it the largest global source of revenue from social commerce. Its international version, TikTok on the other hand, is expected to generate over $20 billion in revenue in the same year.
In the meanwhile, Meta, which anticipates total revenues of about 94 million dollars, is taking the place of social commerce via Facebook and Instagram. According to recent statistics, the most widely used social commerce network is still Facebook with an expected number of 64.6 million social commerce buyers in 2024. And what follows Facebook? With 46.8 million buyers estimation Instagram, of course.
YouTube’s New Shopping Features
Let’s not forget about YouTube either. Considering that it only aired in 2020, YouTube's short-form video format, "Shorts," currently has over 2 billion monthly logged-in visitors. Since video content is becoming more and more popular and presents significant chances for businesses to reach younger audiences, advertisers are taking a close look at each of these platforms. According to recent data, 77% of people between the ages of 15 and 35 in America, actively use YouTube. And, it has recently expanded its social shopping by introducing an affiliate marketing program.
Now, creators can tag products in their videos to earn commissions, which was a big hit at last year’s VidCon. The platform has been testing various shopping tools since 2021. Finally, last June they officially launched it for creators with more than 20,000 subscribers. With collaborations from over 50 brands, YouTube is supporting creators to launch their own products, which puts them in direct competition with other social giants like TikTok and Instagram.
Moreover, creators now have a new method to collect products from their favorite companies, or even create their own line, with Shopping Collections. They can choose a range of items to fit any theme, from the perfect capsule wardrobe to their current daily cosmetics look. Collections can be found in the video description, Store tab, and product list of a creator. Creators may now create Collections on their phones using the Studio app; the desktop support for the feature will be added soon.
Other platforms like Pinterest are also getting in on the action. Pinterest is a great place for finding things that inspire people to purchase, like home decor or fashion. It’s set up to help customers discover and buy these things all in one place, which is super handy. Like other social media platforms, Pinterest is also increasing its active users almost everyday. According to the platform’s report, it now has over 518 million monthly active users. More importantly, it is used by 31% of US adults with household incomes above $100,000, and the great majority of searches on the platform (97%) are unbranded.
Besides that, the most interesting part is under 35-year-olds make up 70% of Pinterest's luxury audience. Why is that important? Because businesses can connect with potential clients who may not be familiar with their offerings but have the extra cash to make large purchases by posting product listings from their online store on Pinterest.
With billions of people using these social media platforms, we can easily say that there’s a huge audience ready to shop this way. Worldwide, the number of social media users in 2024 was over 5 billion, and by 2028, it was expected to reach over 6 billion. The numbers are promising in terms of social media purchases as well. It is estimated that 18.5% of all internet purchases in 2023 came from sales made on social media platforms, and it is expected to be even more in the upcoming years. This creates a great opportunity for brands. Meaning, they can now turn every post or video into a chance to sell something, which is also changing how they market and connect with their customers.
While the potential of social commerce is vast, brands still have to remember that it is a rented channel. Whereas they can trace and learn from every step of the customer journey on their own digital stores, the analytics and data provided by social media can be limited and may only provide a narrow scope. This can be a significant concern for brands relying heavily on these platforms. Therefore, what brands can do is to focus on the essence here: the essence of the experience taking place in social commerce. The enriched content experience, with videos, images, interactions, and so. Brands need to rethink the experience they also provide on their own digital flagship stores in light of these developments and make it closer to the social media experience.
Solutions like Storyly can be a great way to do that. With Storyly, for instance, brands can create interactive, personalized and dynamic content experiences on their websites and apps, which would mimic the experience they have on social media. On top of that, brands can utilize the zero-party and first-party data to enhance engagement.
While social commerce is a growing trend, it should complement the robust experiences offered by eCommerce websites and apps.
AI and VR Integrations Changing the Way We Shop Online
Artificial intelligence (AI) is almost everywhere to make our lives easier today. As part of it, online shopping is getting a big upgrade with artificial intelligence (AI) and virtual reality (VR) too. Platforms are increasingly integrating AI and VR technologies to enrich their customers’ social shopping experiences.
These technologies allow users to visualize products in their environment or try them on virtually, which significantly influences purchasing decisions, especially in the fashion and beauty sectors.
Mark McShane, Founder of Cupid PR emphasizes the future advancements in this space as follows:
“The integration of AI and machine learning will become even more pronounced, driving personalized shopping experiences and predictive analytics that enhance customer satisfaction and operational efficiency.
Augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) will revolutionize online shopping by offering immersive product experiences, allowing consumers to try before they buy from the comfort of their homes.”
Enhancing App and Web Commerce on Your Digital Flagship Store with Storyly
In light of these developments, brands should reconsider and align their digital flagship stores more closely with social media experiences. As we discussed, while social commerce primarily spreads around on social media, integrating tools like Storyly can extend dynamic and personalized shopping experiences to your own apps and websites. Storyly enhances user engagement by incorporating interactive, full-screen content that inspires customers to take desired actions. This is particularly valuable for brands looking to create seamless transitions from social media interactions to direct engagement on their own digital platforms.
Interactive and Personalized Content
Storyly enables you to implement interactive, personalized, and shoppable content similar to those on social media, but directly within your app or website. What makes personalization and interactivity so crucial? It is easy. By using personalized and interactive elements, you can provide your audience real-time control over how they engage with your content. It's the ideal approach to change passive involvement to active consumption.
Interactive features like polls, quizzes, emoji reactions, and swipe-up links to product pages, can help turn passive browsing into active shopping. But more importantly, you can gather zero-party data through these interactive elements. Forrester first used the phrase "zero-party data" in 2020. It can be characterized as information that a client voluntarily and proactively provides to a business to improve their experience as a whole. While you still obtain it through your own methods, it is not the same as first-party data.
Today, a lot of brands especially use polls and quizzes on Storyly to increase user engagement and gather insightful feedback. You can obtain the marketing data you require by making an investment in zero-party data collecting and perhaps exercising some creativity. With Storyly, you can tailor content based on user interactions and preferences. Your app or website can deliver personalized experiences that resonate strongly with your users.
For example, Decathlon leveraged Storyly to reduce cart abandonment with personalized content. They have created personalized interactive gift guides based on the individual preferences of each user, product roundups suited to various sports, and instant access to sales and best-selling items. As soon as customers launch the app, personalized content greets them. Therefore, they can easily locate exactly what they need and finish their transactions quickly. Furthermore, by recalling customers who have left things in their cart, personalized cart abandonment content assists Decathlon in increasing conversion rates.
Shoppable Content
Shoppable videos are revolutionizing the way consumers interact with brands by seamlessly blending entertainment and shopping experiences. With Storyly, brands can create immersive shoppable content using images and videos directly within their apps and websites, transforming passive viewing into active engagement. Imagine a customer watching a video about the latest fashion trends and being able to purchase their favorite items without leaving your app or website. This is what you can do with Storyly, reducing friction in the buying process and leading to higher conversion rates.
Storyly’s shoppable videos allow you to embed clickable links and product tags within the video content. Users can simply tap on the items they are interested in, view detailed product information, and proceed to purchase. All within a few clicks. This enhances user experience but it also boosts sales by making the shopping journey as smooth and engaging as possible.
Moreover, shoppable videos can be tailored to individual user preferences, providing a personalized shopping experience. By leveraging Storyly’s zero-party data, you can deliver content that resonates with each viewer, revealing products they are more likely to purchase. This level of personalization helps in building stronger connections with your audience and encourages repeat visits. Moreover, you can create a sense of urgency with Storyly’s new cover images and animations to motivate users to take action. Limited-time offers within Storyly content can drive viewers from "just browsing" to "must buy now." For your cover image badges, you can incorporate entertaining emojis, countdowns, and engaging copy which will improve your customers’ experiences and encourage them to check out your content and offerings.
Data-Driven Decisions
Data-driven decisions are crucial for optimizing customer experiences and driving business growth. And Storyly empowers brands to make informed decisions by providing comprehensive analytics and insights into user behavior. By leveraging these insights, you can tailor your content strategy to meet the specific needs and preferences of your audience.
Storyly collects valuable data on how users interact with your content, such as views, clicks, engagement rates, and more. This data is crucial in understanding which content resonates most with your audience and identifying areas for improvement. By analyzing these metrics, brands can refine their content strategies, focusing on what works best and eliminating what doesn’t.
Additionally, through interactive features like polls, quizzes, and surveys you can collect zero-party data that would provide direct insights from your users. This two-way channel also enables you to gather valuable feedback and preferences straight from your audience, ensuring that your content is always relevant and engaging.
For example, Nescafé owned by Nestlé, used Storyly in NE'APP to collect user opinions and feedback. With the help of this ongoing feedback loop, they examined their data and translated it into insights that can be used to improve and target their campaigns for clients. This strategy has given them a way to verify their data twice and enhanced their customer communications. With 924k responses to interactives, Storyly has transformed how Nescafé gathers customer feedback by providing them with direct access to people and assisting them in converting data into insights.
Intrigued by the results? Contact us to learn more about how Storyly can revolutionize your digital platforms.
Strategic Moves for Marketers
For marketers, the rise of social commerce signifies a shift in strategy. It's crucial to understand where your target audience spends their time and how they prefer to engage with content. Creating seamless, engaging content that naturally integrates purchasing opportunities can lead to higher engagement and sales conversion rates.
Furthermore, leveraging data to tailor experiences, understand consumer behavior, and personalize interactions can elevate the effectiveness of social commerce initiatives. As platforms continue to evolve, staying agile and informed will be key to benefit from these trends.
Optimize for Mobile Experience
Currently, mobile internet traffic accounts for over 60% of total web traffic. Given that the majority of social media browsing happens on mobile devices, ensuring that your social commerce initiatives are optimized for mobile is crucial. This includes having mobile-friendly interfaces, easy navigation, and quick-loading content. Since many users will interact with your brand through their smartphones, a smooth mobile experience can significantly boost engagement and sales.
Leverage User-Generated Content
User-generated content (UGC) is a powerful tool in social commerce. Encourage your customers to share their experiences with your products on their social media. This will provide authentic content that can drive engagement and serve as social proof to potential customers. For example, featuring customer reviews and real-life images can enhance credibility and attract more buyers.
Utilize Advanced Targeting with AI
Use AI-driven analytics to understand your audience better and deliver more personalized shopping experiences. AI can help segment your audience and tailor your marketing strategies to meet the specific needs and preferences of different groups. For instance, AI can track user behavior to suggest personalized product recommendations directly in the social media feeds.
Integrate Seamless Purchasing Options
To convert engagement into sales, integrate seamless purchasing options within the social media platforms. Tools like Instagram’s Checkout feature allow users to buy products without leaving the platform, reducing friction and simplifying the buying process. This ease of purchase can significantly increase conversion rates.
Collaborate with Influencers
Influencer collaborations can amplify your reach and authenticity. Choose influencers whose followers align with your target market. Influencers can create compelling content that feels more personal and less like a traditional advertisement, which can lead to higher engagement and conversions.
Track and Adapt to Emerging Trends
Social media trends can change rapidly. Stay on top of these trends and be ready to adapt your strategies accordingly. This can include experimenting with new features like live shopping events or adopting new social media platforms as they gain popularity.
By implementing these strategic moves, you can keep up with the social commerce world. These strategies emphasize the importance of being agile and responsive to the changing dynamics of digital marketing and consumer behavior.
Conclusion
As we wrap up our look at social commerce in 2024, it's evident that shopping through social media is becoming a normal part of how companies sell products and engage with their audience. The merging of social media and eCommerce has made it easier for brands to connect with consumers right where they spend a lot of their time. Features like shopping directly on mobile devices, using AI to suggest products, and collaborating with influencers are reshaping how we shop.
Brands that use these tools effectively can build stronger connections with their audience, turning every like and comment into a chance to engage and possibly make a sale. The success in this evolving market comes from staying flexible, trying out new technologies, and adapting to what consumers want.
In short, social commerce is more than a passing trend. It's setting the direction for the future of shopping, as businesses become part of their customers' daily social experiences. Moving forward, the most successful brands will be those that can blend into the social media landscape, making shopping a natural and enjoyable part of how we use these platforms.
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