Social commerce

E-commerce
Digital content
Retail goods and services
Online shopping
Mobile commerce
Customer service
E-procurement
Purchase-to-pay
Super-apps

Social commerce[1] is a subset of electronic commerce that involves social media and online media that supports social interaction, and user contributions to assist online buying and selling of products and services.[2]

More succinctly, social commerce is the use of social network(s) in the context of e-commerce transactions from browsing to checkout, without ever leaving a social media platform.[3]

The term social commerce was introduced by Yahoo! in November 2005[4] which describes a set of online collaborative shopping tools such as shared pick lists, user ratings and other user-generated content-sharing of online product information and advice.

The concept of social commerce was developed by David Beisel to denote user-generated advertorial content on e-commerce sites,[5] and by Steve Rubel[6] to include collaborative e-commerce tools that enable shoppers "to get advice from trusted individuals, find goods and services and then purchase them". The social networks that spread this advice have been found[7] to increase the customer's trust in one retailer over another.

Social commerce aims to assist companies in achieving the following purposes. Firstly, social commerce helps companies engage customers with their brands according to the customers' social behaviors. Secondly, it provides an incentive for customers to return to their website. Thirdly, it provides customers with a platform to talk about their brand on their website. Fourthly, it provides all the information customers need to research, compare, and ultimately choose you over your competitor, thus purchasing from you and not others.[8]

In these days, the range of social commerce has been expanded to include social media tools and content used in the context of e-commerce, especially in the fashion industry. Examples of social commerce include customer ratings and reviews, user recommendations and referrals, social shopping tools (sharing the act of shopping online), forums and communities, social media optimization, social applications and social advertising.[9] Technologies such as augmented reality have also been integrated with social commerce, allowing shoppers to visualize apparel items on themselves and solicit feedback through social media tools.[10]

Some academics[11] have sought to distinguish "social commerce" from "social shopping", with the former being referred to as collaborative networks of online vendors; the latter, the collaborative activity of online shoppers.

  1. ^ Social Commerce Defined. Socialcommercetoday.com. Retrieved on 2013-01-10.
  2. ^ Lam, Hugo K.S.; Yeung, Andy C.L.; Lo, Chris K.Y.; Cheng, T.C.E. (2019). "Should Firms Invest in Social Commerce? An Integrative Perspective". Information & Management. 56 (8): 103164. doi:10.1016/j.im.2019.04.007. hdl:10397/89937.
  3. ^ Santora, Jacinda (2021-03-17). "Social Commerce Guide: Everything You Need to Know for 2022". Influencer Marketing Hub. Retrieved 2022-10-13.
  4. ^ Social Commerce via the Shoposphere & Pick Lists Archived 2010-01-23 at the Wayback Machine. Ysearchblog.com (2005-11-14). Retrieved on 2013-01-10.
  5. ^ (The Beginnings of) Social Commerce. Retrieved on 2013-01-10.
  6. ^ 2006 Trends to Watch Part II: Social Commerce. Micro Persuasion (2012-08-30). Retrieved on 2013-01-10.
  7. ^ The Role of Social Networks in Online Shopping. arxiv.org. Retrieved on 2013-01-10.
  8. ^ Social commerce. www-01.ibm.com. Retrieved on 2014-11-30.
  9. ^ The 6 Dimensions of Social Commerce: Rated and Reviewed Archived 2010-02-25 at the Wayback Machine. Socialcommercetoday.com (2012-09-24). Retrieved on 2013-01-10.
  10. ^ FMM Archived 2012-08-05 at the Wayback Machine. Fashionablymarketing.me. Retrieved on 2013-01-10.
  11. ^ Andrew T. Stephen & Olivier Toubia, Columbia University (2010). "Deriving Value from Social Commerce Networks" (PDF). Journal of Marketing Research. XLVII (2): 215–228. doi:10.1509/jmkr.47.2.215. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2012-08-16.