Getting To Know Social Commerce, Selling Directly From Social Media

Illustration. (Photo: Unsplash)

JAKARTA - The increasingly sophisticated development of technology makes human life now interact a lot on social media. If in the past it interacted through e-commerce, now many people are starting to transact through social commerce.

Social commerce is now an instrument in digital marketing. Currently, social media is not only used to expand connections or share experiences. The reason is, not a few people prefer to shop directly through social media.

Social commerce is an effort to sell products directly through social media networks. This one is quite different from social selling or social media marketing. The reason is that social commerce offers an easier shopping experience for customers.

Customers who are interested in buying no longer need to be shown to the web to buy products. So, customers can immediately look for products to pay for them through the social media platform.

One of the advantages of social commerce is to simplify the shopping process for customers without having to leave their social media application. This of course can reduce the balance of potential customers who really want to buy products.

Here are some reasons why social commerce is worth a try which you must know:

1. Shopping experience is more interactive

According to Hootsuite, social commerce can make shopping experience much more interactive than shopping using e-commerce in general. The experience of shopping is more exciting because sorting out objects is easier, it just requires social media scrolling like usual. The payment process is also directly in one application, so it is easier and less complicated.

Through social commerce, consumers can be in direct contact with sellers when carrying out transactions. The interaction between the seller and the buyer is one of the significant aspects that can influence consumer decisions in buying a product.

For surveys that Facebook and BCG tried, 94 percent of Indonesian consumers admitted that they were more confident in buying products from sellers that were responsive to chat. Even the Sirclo survey shows 82 percent of Indonesian consumers believe in products sold by social media.

2. Easy to get feedback from customers

The next advantage of social commerce is to make it easier for brands to get feedback from customers. The product catalog can directly be provided with feedback by customers so that the seller can find out whether the product is attractive or not.

Not only that, social media also makes it easier for sellers to connect with customers, either through opinions or direct messages.

3. Easy to attract millennials and Gen Z for shopping

Social commerce can be called a modern mall favored by young Gen Z. Purchases on social media that are very easy and instant make young people more interested in shopping there than going straight to the mall.

So, if you have a product that has an audience target aged 18 to 34 years, then there is nothing wrong with trying to sell through social commerce.

4. Simpler Settings

From the seller's side, social media arrangements are relatively simpler than other sales platforms, in addition to more easily updating product availability. For example, some marketplaces require sellers to upload self-information first before being verified.

That is, sellers are obliged to wait so that online stores can be active. Likewise, online shop webs, a more environmental system and larger capital are needed. Meanwhile, on social media, you can sell using an individual account and the account settings are relatively easier.

5. Easier to receive transactions

Another advantage of social commerce that is most important for MSMEs is the faster circulation of money compared to the marketplace platform. The reason is that in the marketplace sellers are required to wait 5-8 days until customers receive packages and receive their money from e-commerce.

Meanwhile, through social commerce, you can directly accept payments from consumers. Viewing that it means direct interaction for consumers in carrying out transactions, you can optimize their sales through chat commerce.

If the seller is responsive and provides a safe shopping experience, the buyer will also want to be more trusted to buy the products sold.

Indonesia's social commerce is growing, and in the future there will be a lot of social media that provides features for selling directly.

1. Facebook

The platform for implementing the initial social commerce is Facebook. This very well-known social media is indeed the right place to sell something. This is because Facebook is very popular and has many users.

So, by selling through this platform, sellers want to have a great opportunity to attract wider customers.

2. Instagram

Instagram is not just a place to share images and videos. Currently, the social media has an Instagram Shopping feature that wants to make it easier for users to shop. Instagram Shopping users have been in more than 70 countries.

3. Pinterest

This social media has started to practice the feature for buying and selling since 2015. Currently, Pinterest is one of the most famous social media for selling. This has made many merchants begin to find out Pinterest Marketing's strategy to attract more customers.

4. Tiktok

One of the social commerce platforms that consumers in Indonesia love is because TikTok also has features that allow users to buy products directly from the TikTok application.

TikTok has launched the TikTok Shop feature that allows users to shop for products from leading brands as well as from other TikTok users. TikTok Shop allows users to find new products, review products, and make direct purchases from the TikTok app.

Thus, it can be said that TikTok is included in the social commerce category because it provides shopping features on its platform.

Those are some examples of Indonesia's social commerce platforms. However, there are many other social commerce platforms that can be found in Indonesia.

SleekFlow is an omnichannel customer relationship management (CRM) platform that can help You practice your social commerce strategy. So by using Sleekflow your business transactions are not difficult.

When you use Sleekflow then you can integrate all chat features on one social commerce platform that you use such as Facebook, Instagram to WhatsApp or LINE, into one inbox.

After that, you can share access to the inbox with many admins so that everyone can work together in one place. This will certainly facilitate the performance of your business transactions, right?

Not only that, Sleekflow can also place customer information automatically. For example, you want to put your phone number, email and customer address. You can automatically create capture information to put all the information into the Sleeekflow platform.