Ecommerce is the business of generating sales via the internet. Traditionally, this means running a website with shopping cart functionality. Visitors can visit your site, purchase products and products are mailed out to customers. More recently the idea of ecommerce has diversified somewhat, and one of the strongest aspects of ecommerce these days is social commerce.
What do we mean by social commerce?
It’s simple really: social commerce refers to sales that are generated via social media, as opposed to simply running and marketing a website. There are lots of advantages here, not least the huge readymade customer base. Many users no go straight to social media outlets as opposed to search engines when they log on to the internet.
Some businesses thrive with their social media stores, whilst others don’t do so well. One of the main reasons why people fail at social commerce is that they approach it the same way as they do their website, attempting to recreate their website on a social media platform. What they should do, however, is start a fresh, using social media functionality to create a store that works socially.
Success at ecommerce is about exposure. This is often called multi channel marketing, i.e. using several methods of selling products. If you already run a successful online store why not diversify into social media, there could be a lot gain. You can also use social media in other ways too, taking advantage of social media advertising, for example.
