When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, all non-essential brick-and-mortar shops were forced to close their doors. As a result, more and more businesses turned to ecommerce to sell their products online. We no longer set time aside to ‘go shopping’ because we are always shopping! With a new, must-have product just a click away our shopping habits have completely changed.
Social media giant Facebook saw this shift in shopper behaviour and launched the revolutionary Facebook shops platform to meet demand, with Instagram following suit with their “shopping” tab that gives brands access to a wide audience to showcase products and services.
Social media shops give users a completely different shopping experience to what they are used to. Unlike other sales avenues, the entire buying experience takes place in the social media app. Users don’t seek out your products, instead your products are presented directly to the user as part of their feed, prompting them to buy as they scroll.
We discover products we’ve never even heard of before and decide we have to have it, due to inviting advertising and the ease of availability. Social media shops help businesses close these sales by doing it all on app with smooth finishing touches like autofill payments.
The more time users spend on social media, the more information the algorithm collects about them – information that can be used to help target the right stores and products to the right people. It has changed the future of sales because where once it was down to your website to close the sale, now there is one less obstacle in the way of you and a great ROI.