Social Commerce Facts and Features That Will Level Up Your E-Commerce Game

Learn more about social media's potential for your eCommerce growth.

All the world’s a big shopping mall, and all the social media platforms are merely places for a seamless shopping experience. If Shakespeare were still around, he might've said something like that, considering how much shopping happens on social platforms nowadays.

Never heard of social commerce? No biggie. The answer comes in 3, 2, 1...

Social commerce is when one makes a purchase directly on social media. You find something noice, learn more about it, and buy it without leaving the app. Not all social media platforms allow shopping directly on their platforms just yet, but that’s about to change soon.

You might not find this idea useful for your business, but here are a few reasons that could change your mind about utilizing social commerce:

If you've got a small business, a small team, and a small budget, social commerce platforms let you sell things without a dedicated webshop.
Even if you've got a large business and a functioning webshop, social commerce offers this smooth, all-in-one app experience that users love. It speeds up their journey from discovering a product to adding it to their cart.
27% of users prefer finding new stuff through social media.
Social commerce is predicted to grow three times faster than eCommerce, reaching $1.2 trillion by 2025.
In the next 4 years, over 114 million users are expected to spend around $1000 annually on social purchases.
According to a survey by Shopify and Gallup, almost half of online shoppers between 18 and 29 decided to get their Christmas 2023 gifts on social media apps. If the sitcom "How I Met Your Mother" were filmed in 2024, Robin wouldn't be singing "Let's go to the mall" but rather "Let's shop on TikTok!”.

TikTok Shop

With over a billion monthly users 55% of which use the platform for brand exploration, TikTok is transforming beyond a place where one just finds and learns about products; it’s becoming an all-in-one hub for marketing and sales. TikTok is already used as a search engine among Gen Z and other generations, so it’s no surprise that it is becoming an important social commerce platform.

TikTok introduced its first social commerce features in 2022, with TikTok Shop first introduced in the US in September 2023, riding the trend wave of #TikTokMadeMeBuyIt. The feature is now only available in the US, UK, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand. But considering TikTok’s ambitions, it probably won’t be long before they expand this feature to other countries.

These are some of the options on TikTok for both small and large businesses when it comes to product offerings and advertising:

1) TikTok Live Shopping

Imagine you’re watching a live video of a makeup influencer who puts on makeup. With just a few additional clicks, you can buy products shown in the video. Wait, you don’t have to imagine. Check out this example of TikTok Live shopping.

2) TikTok Shoppable Videos

Similar to Live shopping, this version of the news feed serves a 'Shop' button that appears above the profile name. Clicking on that button takes you to the product link and a basket icon.

3) TikTok Product Showcase

This is most similar to a traditional webshop. To reach the product showcase, you click on the profile of the brand or creator, and next to the content icon, there's a shopping cart icon that leads to TikTok product offerings. Easy peasy.

4) TikTok Dynamic Showcase Ads

These are the chameleons of advertising - they adapt to users’ interests and actions. A few types of dynamic showcase ads templates let you create content that fights right in with TikTok’s vibe with many audio, text, clips and sticker options. If you use Shopify, Square, Ecwid or BigCommerce platforms, you can sync products from your platforms with the TikTok catalog. Grab this chance if you’re in a country where TikTok has Ads Manager available.

Pinterest Shop

It does have a smaller base than Facebook, YouTube and TikTok (around 470 million users), but Pinterest is turning from a place to find clothes, furniture, and tons of other inspo into a shopping hotspot fast. Also, Pinterest dived into personalized suggestions by using AI and its special signals that show what shoppers are looking for, which makes it a great social commerce platform.

Pinterest shopping features are currently available in the US, UK, Canada, Germany, Belgium, Netherlands, and 28 other countries. If your country is among the chosen ones, here are some useful features:

1) Pinterest Catalog

Similar to TikTok Product Showcase, this is the most similar thing to the classic webshop. If you upload your products to Pinterest catalogs, you’ll have 5x more impressions than those who haven’t added their products on Pinterest. The easiest way to upload products is with integrations with Shopify, WooCommerce, Lengow, ChannelAdvisor, GoDataFeed, Feedonomics or Productsup.

2) Pinterest Buyable Pins

These pins are like normal pins, but with a “buy” button, letting users buy items they notice without ever leaving the app.

3) Pinterest Shopping list

Feature that allows users to save their product Pins in one place and receive price notifications. That way they can finalize the purchase whenever they're ready.

4) Pinterest Shopping Ads

With Pinterest shopping ads, you can reach users at the exact moment when they’re most likely to act. Shopping Ads include details such as pricing, product availability and reviews. They work similarly to dynamic ads on other platforms. Pinterest ads are available in 34 countries.

Meta (Facebook and Instagram) Shop

Meta is a whale of social commerce, owning Facebook with 3 billion monthly users and Instagram with 2.3 billion monthly users. Although we might feel like 🎶it’s time to say goodbye🎶 to Facebook, it's still a relevant platform for social commerce if that’s where your target audience hangs out.

Both Facebook and Instagram are relevant social commerce platforms because they have many years of experience compared to their competition. Facebook rolled out Dynamic Ads in 2015, Instagram introduced in-app checkout in 2019, and the shop vibe hit Facebook Marketplace in 2021.

Shop features are currently available in 22 countries, but not everything works like it used to. Live shopping is unavailable as of March 2023, but there are other relevant options to consider:

1) Facebook Shop and Instagram Shop

FB and IG shops are some sort of digital storefronts where you can sell and share your brand story. Potential buyers can either be directed to your website or can make purchases natively from within the Meta family of apps. The in-app checkout functionality has only been rolled out in the US so far, but look out for its availability in your market as Meta expands its capabilities globally. If it’s available in your country, you’ll have the option to set up an Instagram shop without a website and create a catalog that is connected to your webshop.

2) Dynamic Ads

These might not count as social commerce in their pure form, as the transaction must always be completed elsewhere, but they are an important part of the shopping journey on the platform. Facebook dynamic ads target relevant audiences with relevant products based on their previous actions and performance data, using machine learning. Check out the Shopify blog if you’re curious to see more of this stuff - Facebook Dynamic Ads Examples.

3) Product tags

Similar to Pinterest Buyable Pins, it’s a simple way for people to tap on a tag on your post or story and find out more about the product from your catalog.

Social commerce is the future of eCommerce

This is just a tiny slice of all available social commerce platforms you could consider. Apart from these social commerce platforms, there are also YouTube, Snapchat, and Twitter, which we will leave for another blog post.

If this blog scared you and made you think that social commerce would completely take over, relax. Think of social commerce as an extension of your e-commerce business that can freshen up your audience with younger users.

Even if your country doesn't support shops on these platforms yet, it's smort to think about building a presence there because social commerce is the future of online retail. That way, you'll be all set when these shops do arrive. Rest assured, they're bound to pop up almost everywhere.

In the meantime, use the available features and craft a meaningful presence on networks your audience enjoys + that are authentic to your brand. And remember: you don’t have to be on every social media platform, you don’t have to catch ‘em all. Just be on social media platforms that make sense for your business and use social commerce features that seamlessly blend into what you do.

IVONA LENARD / 2024-01-11