Social e-commerce: a practical guide
Shopping has always been a social experience, for some people it is entertainment and there is nothing better than shopping at night with the girls. Unfortunately, there is less and less time to shop as a hobby for employees. As a consequence, e-commerce is now mainstream with double-digit growth rates year over year. A retailer that is not online today is probably in trouble.
E-commerce has been growing for over a decade and you can buy just about anything online. Even divas are shopping online, check out the number of fashion and bag sites. My favorite ecommerce success story is Net-a-porter. “While rivals on the street were hit by the recession, Net-a-Porter increased its pre-tax earnings from £ 3 million to £ 10.1 million over the period.” And then there is the ‘lipstick index’ which generally rises during economic downturns. In the current recession it has not increased, but online sales have. Check out the links below if you need more convincing. If you’re a retailer and you’re not convinced to go online, read these articles. Today you need more than a transactional e-commerce site; some retailers are experimenting with social e-commerce.
In the simplest terms, social commerce is buying and selling things online with the help of friends. If you are a small retailer, you can add a social network with product ratings and reviews, blogs, forums, videos, and photos relatively easily and inexpensively. There are many ‘white label’ online services available to choose from. A ‘white label’ service provides a piece of functionality that is easy to make to look like your brand. It is the equivalent of the private labeling of a product. You can take multiple white label services and combine them to create a social commerce site. A crucial consideration is the ability to make sites look the same. Same navigation, same colors, same fonts, same graphics. I looked at a lot of white label services and spoke to a few web development companies. I came to the conclusion that it would be stupid to pay $ 100,000 for something that I could set up for free and use for less than $ 1000 per year. I chose shopify for ecommerce, ning for social media, and js-kit for ratings and reviews. These fit my budget and are easy to use. Relatively easy, I have to reveal that I have a background in technology. All of these services have tiered prices. You can set up your site and learn how to use it for free. Once you’re ready to launch, upgrade to the paid service based on your needs. All services are fully housed and very reasonably priced. Once you have a destination, you must promote it.
If you are a marketer or a retailer, you have heard this disturbing “new marketing” rumor. Disturbing because it is not controlled and few really know how to make it work. There has been a structured formula for how to market and sell and now they tell you that it no longer works. In the back of your mind, you know it’s true, even if you don’t like the relentless ads for Viagra and Cialas during the Super Bowl or the 20-minute pharmaceutical ads during the half-hour morning news. But this’ new marketing … OMG! Now you have to ‘ask permission’, ‘start a conversation’, ‘build a relationship’ just for the honor of selling a good. And while people socialize, they don’t want to be advertised. It sounds overwhelming, but it’s really no different than what you do when someone walks into your store. You try to make them feel comfortable greeting them, you try to start a conversation to get to know them. It can take time, the best brands build relationships, know their customers and let them know when there is an item they might want. Social commerce is the same … it’s just on a larger scale … with a global reach. You are no longer limited by geography.