With the rise of social media and mobile usage, more and more people are going online to purchase goods and services than ever before. With the advancing hardware and internet connection, people are moving steadily toward mobile usage, creating a tighter relationship with social media.
The world shrunk to the size of a computer and laptop before social media and mobile usage has come phenomenal as we see today. With the rapid percentage increase of internet users, business has come in to the day where wires and screens is viral, and the world further decrease its size to meet your palm.
With social media and mobile devices driving their way through the information traffic, marketers and business owners are diving into the trends in particular that are shaping the future of e-commerce: social sharing, mobile commerce and online chat.
Social Sharing
In today’s online marketplace, social sharing is having an increasingly profound effect on our purchase behavior. A recent study by Social Labs found that 62 percent of all online shoppers have read product-related comments from friends on Facebook, in which 75 percent of these shoppers have ended up clicking through to visit the retailer’s site, and 53 percent end up purchasing the product.
The study also showed that this kind of social approach has a great impact on shopper's confidence, with 57 percent of shoppers more likely to buy after receiving positive brand acknowledgement from a social media friends. It seems that positive social sharing experiences tend to create behavioral cycle of social sharing and purchasing, impacting further online consumer ecosystem.
Businesses can get into the trend by engaging social networks and share content directly on their website or e-commerce site. They can also offer an option to share "on-site only" which will encourage consumers to share, and will provide persuasive social proofing content for new visitors.
Businesses can further engage their social network activity by ask satisfied customers to provide reasons why they like their products and/or services. The more positive feedback they get, and able to offer other prospects, the greater the chances and possibilities they will successfully convert them to sales.
Businesses can make it easy for their customers to share experiences with their friends by providing social share buttons on their sites. This kind of sharing will broaden the business' reach, as the business dive into viral, enabling them word-of-mouth marketing that will go forth and promote their products and/or services to the customers' social media followers.
Social sharing and other forms of user-generated content are becoming a better way of marketing. According to eMarketer, 65 percent of users aged 18-24 consulted the information they found about brands on social networks when making a purchasing decision.
Mobile Commerce
More and more shoppers are turning to their mobile devices when purchasing goods and services online, according to a recent survey conducted by Placecast. The survey found that 39 percent Americans made an online purchase using their phone last year, which represents roughly 20 percent of all mobile phone owners in the United States. A smaller percentage applied to the European regions followed by Asia and Australia. The lowest percentage comes from the Middle East and Africa.
A poll concluded that, some 59 percent indicated that having the ability to make a purchase using their device was at least "somewhat important." And 30 percent of all mobile phone owners who don't already receive marketing text messages from retailers said that they are actually interested in receiving them.
Live Chat
From the early AIM, online chat has been a phenomenal advance on how people communicate and socialize without having to meet in person. After more than a decade of instant messaging, live chat has finally reached a tipping point of adoption for online shoppers. A survey conducted in 2011 found that, more than 2,000 people in the U.S. and the U.K. were asked about their experiences with live chat. The survey revealed significant growth over previous years for both chats initiated by visitors and for chats resulting from proactive invitations from retailers.
20 percent of online shoppers said they preferred live chat as their communication method of choice for contacting a retailer. Live chat was chosen as the method preferred over email and phone.
The survey also found that customers preferring live chat tend to be college-educated with a higher household income in a more developed countries, more likely to shop more frequently, spend more, and are highly-influenced by the chat experience. In fact, the study found that shoppers who chatted four or more times in the last few months showed all of these attributes in an even more amplified way.
The study concluded that, based on the growth of chat being seen, the internet is approaching a 75 percent or more regular shoppers that will engage in a live chat with a retailer.
Conclusion
Social media networks and mobile are coming together in one single take. Leveraging customers to a business' website will amplify the marketing message by increasing its reach and creating a buzz for the product and/or service into the World Wide Web, while optimizing business websites for mobile will allow further approach. Live chat will engage consumers with personal interaction that will build trust and transparency.
People always want to share about almost everything. Businesses should embrace these trends and help them do it.