You’ve been in lockdown since March. Furthermore, at some given point in the past months, you must’ve chosen to shop online. Online shopping is gaining more popularity during the current crisis. As a business owner, you need to make sure to use whatever tools available at hand to their full potential. Hence, Social networking platforms like Facebook and Instagram are your tools! To use these platforms to their fullest, you need to incorporate social commerce.
Social commerce, also abbreviated as s-commerce. An online retail model that incorporates established social networks to drive sales. A type of marketing where social media meets shopping. Social commerce is a broad aspect that can be narrowed down into seven types.
Seven Types of Social Commerce
Peer to Peer Sales
Peer to peer sales revolves around the online marketplace. Prominent marketplaces like eBay, Etsy, Amazon, etc. are community marketplaces or bazaars where individuals communicate with each other and sell directly to other individuals.
Social Network-Driven Sales
With regards to the types of Social Commerce, a social network-driven occurs when a product referred via a social media website, such as Facebook, Twitter, or Pinterest. The perfect example of this would be the ‘shop’ tab feature available on Facebook.
Group Buying
Sites like Groupon and LivingSocial illustrate this type of s-commerce. These websites present customers with the possibility of a reduced rate if individuals agree to make the purchase.
Peer Recommendations
These sites aggregate user reviews of previous buyers that influence the purchasing decision of potential customers. A good example of this is Amazon’s feature where you have the ability to see what other people have bought the item you have bought.
User Curated Shopping
These sites are a form of user-curated shopping. The best examples being Lyst and The fancy. These websites give users an opportunity to create and share product lists. Other users get the option to shop from the said list as well.
Participatory Commerce
Participatory commerce also referred to as ‘crowdfunding’ or ‘crowdsourcing’. In this type, customers have a role to play in the production process. You may wonder how? It is through voting, collaboratively designing products, and funding production.
Social Shopping
Last but not the least, in the various types of social commerce, we’ve got social shopping. This type is self-explanatory. There may be a chat option that allows individuals to exchange advice and discuss opinions.
Types of Social Commerce – Uplift Your Business
To conclude, these are the seven types of social commerce. Social commerce is still in a stage of infancy. Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest are still trying to figure out how to bring direct transactions to their platform. Online retailers too are continually experimenting with new models and different marketing strategies. These models tried and tested and significantly increase sales and customer satisfaction.
And along with social, why not create your very own eCommerce store. Dash101 is a full-stack eCommerce platform that helps individuals or organizations to create and manage an online business. It offers a free online shop website, top in the industry-leading logistics SaaS solutions, along with online payment integrations, Cash On Delivery, various marketing, and promotion tools.