JBi-Film-Cover
JBi-Film-Cover
Runway by Kris Atomic
Runway by Kris Atomic

Social currency… Is your ecommerce website rolling in it?

Given that the average shopping cart abandonment rate is 67.44% (that’s a staggering 2 out 3 sales with goods in their baskets) you can most definitely breathe a big sigh of relief, have a little sit down or even have a large drink as each order comes through on your E-Commerce website. And we’re just taking a guess here, but we think you’ll say despite making it through, ‘sales could always be better,’ we know this because, well, most of our E-Commerce clients say exactly that! So it got us thinking, how exactly do the big boys of E-Commerce do it? And more than anything how have they got their customers coming back for more every time? This is what we found…

Ready for a quick peek and pinch of ideas.

First off is Fab, the ultimate darling of E-Commerce selling everything from rugs to hats, and what’s more Fab is  way up there as one of the most successful global E-Commerce sites socially in the WORLD today.

In fact, a study carried out by the Guardian found that between 2012-2013 Fab sales increased a whopping 300% and what’s more, in Europe, 50% of Fab’s sales originated solely from social media sharing. The stats don’t end there either as Fab’s very own marketing division estimates that someone tweets about the brand every 30 seconds. All in all, it’s pretty incredible stuff given that the brand grew to 1 million users within 5 months of starting out. But how have they done it? Well quite simply really, combining social commerce with e-commerce, and in that order too, social before sales.

In understanding their demographic to the tee as those 35 and younger, or in other words a tech savvy social media bunch, Fab took to social media like a duck to water to engage this group in a number of different ways.

For example, one of their ongoing s-commerce campaigns include allowing members to view which products their Facebook friends are interacting with via a live feed making it super easy to buy a product from the stream.

Another campaign features an inspiration wall on the site where members can upload their style or design inspirations that they can then share on their social media platforms. All in all, Fab encourages their users to join a community of inspiration lovers and more than anything be social. Fab, for us have got it right for two reasons, first, for bridging the gap between the E-Commerce seller and the E-Commerce consumer and second, understanding their user base, it’s then a no brainer why Fab are called Fab.

If there’s an online retailer that’s got the creativity box well and truly ticked it’s ASOS. From clever hash tags to Skype Style Sessions, ASOS have definitely made up for whatever limits online shopping has by cleverly engaging their customer base in a way that’s both innovative and creative. For us, our favourite has to be when ASOS met Vine and created the beautiful #ASOSUnBox me campaign.

When stripped back the concept is as simple as unwrapping a delivery, something we’ve all experienced at some point, but using a clever mix of digital marketing and a sprinkle of creativity ASOS used their Vine creation as an opportunity to showcase their customer base their newest collections.

What’s more with the main aim of engaging their customer base; #ASOSUnBox offered fans of the brand a chance at Twitter fame by uploading their own Vines unboxing an ASOS delivery. In fact, a quick search on Twitter is evidence enough that thinking outside the box can get you further than you thought!  So take it from ASOS, a little creativity goes a long way.

Now we think Fashion ID, the E-Commerce store for Peek and Cloppenburg KG, a German department store have got a pretty cool social media thing going on particularly on Facebook. What they’ve done is implemented a Facebook widget allowing customers to get their friend’s opinions on certain outfits or pieces whilst they are looking online.

So if you’re browsing and you come across a jacket, you’ll also see an option to ask a friend, clicking on this tab will connect you to your Facebook chat, now all you have to do is drag and drop the item into the chat with a question posed e.g. This jacket is mine before you think of buying it!

The idea is really simple, if anything something we could probably do ourselves without the website function, but, the fact that the option actually exists on the site makes it pretty awesome in itself, let’s face it, it’s got us talking.

Now there’s no need to be threatened by the brands we’ve mentioned so far because Made’s example shows us that s-commerce is not just for the fashion world.

As an online retailer of upholstery, Made have kept the website design relatively minimal but what they have done is strategically placed their social media buttons inviting their customer base to not only share ideas but also encourage this by offering incentives to do so e.g.: offering a £30 discount of sharing news of a purchase. What’s more, in showing their visitors how recent their last sale was for a particular item subconsciously triggers a customer engagement to shop. It looks like Made know us a little too well.

So, if we were to compare Made to Fab who’s demographic is somewhat younger, Made have approached their social commerce differently but equally as successfully as our other examples have. The moral of the story here is that ideas to integrate into your s-commerce strategy are altogether limitless, and if done right these can catapult you to E-Commerce heaven.

Our verdict…

So there you have it, how s-commerce can altogether revolutionise your E-Commerce venture. Although our case studies are admittedly some of the major players in the game, we nonetheless think their examples give us great food for thought for taking your E-Commerce site further. From understanding demographics to offering short term or long term incentives, the bottom line is that the possibilities are endless to experiment with when it comes to social commerce.

What’s more the fact that the one and only Mark Zuckerburg said, ‘If I had to guess, social commerce is the next area to really blow up,’ we think we’d better take his word for it. So thinking caps on chaps!