The capabilities social media (Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, etc.) provide to retail brands today are far extended likes, comments, or shares. Through these platforms, online visitors can discover more retailers’ product catalogs through a curated feed of suggestions based on the user’s browsing and intent behavior. But that comes with its own challenges for overstretched e-commerce managers and brands, not least because it means visitors are now discovering a brand outside the retailer’s control.
There is a lot of uncertainty around how to effectively use social media sites but what is not up for debate is their popularity. The photo and video social sharing site Instagram – still in its infancy at just seven years old – recently introduced a ‘Shopping’ feature which has transformed users’ scrolling experience into e-commerce influenced one. Modern retail brands have flocked to social media sites like Instagram to test the actual impact this could have on sales, and with the addition of Snapchat’s shoppable AR lenses, more will likely follow suit.
Slow on the uptake
Surely such shoppable posts that give customers an even greater opportunity to connect with the brands they love should be the mutually beneficial e-commerce platform UK retailers have been dreaming of, right? Not exactly. The UK market has been slow in its uptake, with just under 8% of UK retailers choosing to sell through Instagram Shopping.
Of the brands that became early adopters of social e-commerce, many are reported to be seeing increased traffic from Instagram due to the tagging capability, and the platform shows no signs of halting its social e-commerce function yet. Its shoppable tags will now be available in Instagram Stories – a function used by around 300 million people daily. Instagram has made in-app purchases possible as well.
‘Social shopping’ is not entirely new this year, and two platforms in particular – Facebook and Instagram – have been dominating the space for a while. However, brands must weigh up the trade-off of improving product discovery versus a major concern… the lack of sole access and control to customer data within these platforms.
Platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and now Snapchat redefine what people expect from brands regarding onsite experiences. They’re beginning to encroach on e-commerce revenues. When customers buy via these platforms, e-commerce managers suddenly lose control of the user experience and associated customer insights. Effectively the third-party platform reaps all the benefits.
So how can retailers emulate social design – visual-first, easy search-ability, and personalized content – and combine them with a wholly-owned web channel?
The power of data
First off, online retail competition is fierce; consumers typically shop from between one and five websites. One of those is likely to be Amazon, so it’s a tough fight to be one of the other four, especially with the likes of Instagram and Facebook encroaching on the space.
Data is at the heart of how to win this fight. Knowing your customers means you can build loyalty. But customer data is one of the biggest and most complex areas companies have to handle because of the volume of interactions involved, with behavioral, intent, quantitative and qualitative information all streaming in at speed.
However, by using machine learning, brands can uncover insights, act immediately, and do it at scale. Machine learning allows data to be processed in real time to create a customer experience that is geared solely towards the user, exactly like on social media. This processing is achieved through an intelligent data layer – the mechanism by which your data is collected and analyzed. Get this right, and you allow for a genuinely personalized buyer experience where you serve up content unique to the segment they fall into at any particular time. Brands like Diane von Furstenburg, using machine learning-based personalization tech on mobile, have seen 2.5x more product views, with engaged users converting 80% more often.
By using data to create experiences that invoke the curated ones of social media, retailers can give consumers the experience they crave, boosting loyalty, sales, and the bottom line.