Is Social Commerce the Future for eCommerce Solutions?

We all know how powerful social media truly is. In a world where over 500 million of us have Facebook accounts, and half of those are accessed daily, the band wagon is full to bursting! With such a dramatically increasing audience across a wide range of networks, social media is the real cash cow of the 21st century. The question is, how best to milk it?

The possibilities for companies to interact directly with consumers even before purchasing is unique. How brands approach social media can directly affect market perception and indeed the bottom line.  With 45% of social media users looking to social networks for offers, and 53% actively recommending brands via Twitter,  the gates are open for a new kind of purchasing behaviour known as sCommerce. Social commerce is dominated by the social aspect of purchasing behaviour and how the monetisation and delivery of products to the consumer is managed.

Users sharing purchases and advocating brands has created a perfect atmosphere for companies aiming to turn those ‘likes’ into buys, as evidenced by recent sCommerce successes such as Ticketmaster. This had led to dramatic spending by major companies trying to infiltrate this socially active, opinionated and media savvy world. However, with social networks based strongly on the youth market, with an amazing 99% of 18-25 year olds using a social networking site, and the nature of the platform being essentially social in focus will users swallow the bitter pill of advertising at the expense of advocacy?

What is clear is that with new payment systems being introduced to Facebook an integration of social networks and eCommerce can evolve. Using this new found integration together with user demographics and targeted advertising sCommerce is set to be as concept that 500million of us are going to learn very quickly.

MPP Global Solutions provide secure eCommerce payment solutions for a variety of online channels and mobile devices.