If you are a business owner, then you are probably working hard to stay on top of things and trying to always catch on to the latest trends in the business. And the current trend that you need to be in on is social shopping.
What is social shopping?
Social shopping is a growing trend that has ties to the emergence of influencers and social media marketing. The key idea is that social shopping aims to turn the various social media platforms into online stores, where users are able to purchase the products directly on the platform. This allows the various businesses to engage the customers on the platforms that they already spend their time on, which makes it a lot easier to reach the target audience.
A business will be able to make posts on the social media platforms, where they show off their products – or they might even make use of influencers to do this, making it possible to reach a much larger market based on the influencer’s followers. By picking the right influencer, a business will also be able to reach a very specific audience, for which the product is specifically aimed.
Live shopping
Live shopping is a form of social shopping, where the business can take the audience on a tour of products through the store – either by showcasing the products specifically or by taking them on a virtual tour through the store. This can be done through pre-recorded content, but it can also be done through live streaming, which will grant the audience a semi-personalized shopping experience.
The greatest benefit of live shopping is that it creates a bridge between online shopping, which has historically been very focused on granting the customer an efficient way of shopping from home, with the social component and the possibility of expanded customer server of a physical store. Essentially, it offers the customer a chance to experience the “normal” shopping experience from the comfort of their own home.
Live shopping saw an explosive growth during the Covid-19 lockdowns in many countries, where many shoppers were starved for the real shopping experience that they otherwise couldn’t attain through regular online shopping. And while the demand for live shopping has vastly decreased as countries all over the world returned to normalcy, live shopping had become a phenomenon, that some people were still very interested in using.
The future of social shopping and live shopping
Being able to bring larger parts of the shopping experience onto the social media platforms is definitely a concept that will develop over the next several years. This will include the use of social influencers to promote products, but also the development of virtual shopping. While the concept might have suffered a massive blow with the Metaverse being shut down, it should still be assumed that the future will let us go on a virtual shopping trip from the comfort of our homes.
