Ask around you, the major difference between stores and shops is the relationship between consumers and sellers. The brands have invested social networks to provide advice and recommendations, while working at the point of sale to streamline the purchasing process and personalize the experience through customer knowledge.
However, despite their efforts and, except in rare occasions, social and retail networks operated in silos. According to a Harris Interactive study, 62% of consumers use social networks to search for product information, 58% read reviews, and 51% search for special offers. Social networks are thus a major element of the shopping process and shorten the journey between networks and the act of purchase which is all the more crucial.
# There’s An App for That
There are as many lines of business as there are typologies of social networking.
To play on the influence, services like Iam8Tv or MikMak make it possible to make videos on Snapchat and Instagram and to attach a product, so that it is directly buyable.
In order to use the native side of instant messaging services, bots allow to order through Messenger. MasterCard for example has developed a complete bot from information retrieval to secure payment, all in the Messenger application.
More traditional but equally effective, it is possible to buy products directly through Pinterest. This is actually the use paint brand Krylon made of it in the United States, during their Pinterest Yard Sale activation.
Brands reappropriate social networks in order to get closer to their customers. They have succeeded in overcoming top-down communication by giving the floor and putting their fans in value. Thanks to the innovations of the social ecosystem, the next step is to create a space that aggregates contents, advice and trading platform. Like a shop.
By Sidney Debaque, Strategic Planner @ Agence Cosmic.