Image: Twitter
Will social and shopping ever go together?
The recent decision by Twitter to pull “buy” buttons from its site has, once again, raised the question of whether social media sites and e-commerce mix.
For years, people have been waiting for f-commerce (f as in Facebook) to take off and it appears as though they will be waiting for a bit longer. Pinterest, which some thought of as the most likely to succeed in making social shopping work, has yet to prove it can turn consumers’ interest in fashion, food, health and other products into direct sales.
Twitter failed to make a go of its e-commerce option despite having 310 million active users making one billion unique visits on a monthly basis. Roughly 83 percent of the site’s users are active on mobile devices.
“People are not buying on social media right now. They are still buying, for the most part, on mobile web,” an unnamed source said to be familiar with Twitter’s inner workings, told BuzzFeed News last month.
While Twitter is no longer building new tech to support its buy buttons, it is not necessarily the end of the shopping option. As an Internet Retailer report pointed out, third-party platforms are still able to insert the buy button option into their tweets and ads on Twitter.
Discussion Questions
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS: Why do you think social media has failed to establish itself as a viable e-commerce channel? Can you suggest a different approach to tackling the challenge for Twitter, Pinterest or the other social media platforms?
Poll
BrainTrust
Bill Hanifin
CEO, Hanifin Loyalty LLC
Ralph Jacobson
Global Retail & CPG Sales Strategist, IBM
Some experts say that the firehose of visual and textual social content with Buy Buttons means that it’s rare an individual shopper will stumble upon items they want to buy now. Add to this the fact that major purchases happen via a consumer journey. Synchrony Financial says the average is 68 days, so the chance of catching someone at the end of the journey via a social discovery is even rarer.
I never understood why the social nets (and partnering retailers) thought Buy Buttons would work, especially because shoppers who have spent the time and effort to find their way to a product page convert at less than 2%. My suggestion would be to change the Buy Button to Remind Me, capture an email, and offer each shopper an “active” wish list with triggered alerts on the items, even at time periods set by the consumer.
Today, I think many social likes and shares on products act as reminders to the consumers who share, but of course, the retailers capture none of this interest and intent. If they partnered with the social nets for Remind Me, they then would have the first party data to help shoppers along their journeys.
Marketers are fond of buzzwords and the latest is the evolution of Omni-channel marketing to Opti-Channel. I just read an overview of Opti-Channel in a Direct Marketing publication and was interested to see how many definitions are circulating on *nearly* commonly accepted buzzwords.
Why do I mention this? Because the challenges social channels have faced to generate e-commerce volume, in particular Facebook and Twitter, illustrates that consumers use channels for distinct purposes. It just might be that these channels should optimize for the use by consumers where they have greatest strength and advantage, but realize that they are not a prime choice as a shopping channel.
The implications are interesting as giving up an e-commerce play means these channels revert their business model to the advertising model that, so far, has been the only one to gain traction in social media.
Social media succeeds because it is, well, social. Shopping simply doesn’t fit amidst browsing connections for personal reward because it requires that our minds shift entirely out of the social zone that brings us to Facebook or Twitter.
So … no. While advertising can have some impact leaving behind brief associations amid social media activity, I can’t imagine why we should expect “buy” buttons to be smart.
And it’s no surprise. TV has been dabbling with buy buttons for a couple of decades. And they have never proven effective.
Somehow I think the major proponent forget that while we buy some impulse products in the store, we do so while we are already in the choosing and evaluating mode of shopping — with the physical product in front of us. That’s not going to happen in social media.
Why is this even a question? Twitter is desperate to monetize its user base due to pressure on the stock. But shopping is only attractive when it offers value to consumers — it’s never successful when it’s primarily a desperate attempt by the company to get revenue.
Do you want to grow your retail sales? Then stop thinking in terms of channels and act in terms of your customers. They don’t wake up in the morning and think channels or where should I place my order for that TV, toolset, or blouse. Wrong questions and old mindsets keep you mired in the past.
Customers use every tool, device, and source to explore, compare, and make the purchase. And we aren’t even talking about all the post-purchase interactions that exist to continue to build loyalty with your customers.
Social is integral in this journey. To put it even more bluntly, social is the new glue that links the entire customer purchase journey together. Today’s purchase journey is not a predictable step by step set of activities with trade-offs — it’s not a zero sum game in the so-called channels. The sooner we pivot to the future and cease to organize what we know about retailing around old paradigms, the sooner we can celebrate the new growth age of retailing — it’s out there!
It’s all about the content and context of social media.
Simply put, the vast majority of content on social media is “social” … people oriented, not product centric. The context of why most people go to social media is to “catch up” on family and friends, not to search for products. While buy buttons might score a few sales for promoted content on social media like Facebook or Twitter, it is simply not a media that people associate with, or use for shopping.
Social media like Pinterest have much more potential for both shopping and selling “things.” The very context of Pinterest is that people go searching for ideas and cool stuff. Lowe’s and Nordstrom have been very successful in getting millions of followers on Pinterest to consider products, and if they don’t buy online, the strategy is to get them to stores. The present opportunity of social media appears to be in the context of omnichannel.
Many of the buy buttons are for a brand or item. Even for those who do social shopping (with other people) they often like to browse a number of choices so a specific buy button may not be attractive unless there are buy buttons next to every item in ever size and color or scent. An overwhelming number of buttons is not helpful. If, after browsing several sites and many options, there is an easy way to purchase that selection from a retailer of choice that might work. Current buy buttons are not compatible with the way consumers shop.
Social continues to evolve, but for now it’s a communications medium, as opposed to a true commerce channel. Social channels definitely participate in the shopper’s journey, often in the “discover” and/or “Learn” stages. However, transactions still have a natural place on pure commerce sites … at least for now. I do believe this will continue to evolve over the next couple years. This change will not take long. Also, just because these social sites haven’t struck the right chord with shoppers, yet doesn’t mean this will never happen. I believe it will happen. The “right place” aspect of marketing’s, “Right time, right product, right place, right price” still has to take hold, obviously.
I suggest better strategic planning and collaboration across social channels, retailers and CPGs. The merchants in retail and CPG have far more experience with what works and what doesn’t.
It appears that consumers use different digital channels for different purposes, and are resistant to combining those purposes in a single channel. Most e-commerce add-ons to Facebook have not proven successful, so it does not surprise me that Twitter has experienced the same thing.
Consumers go on Twitter for the sharing of information and insights (as well as a bit of ranting). They are not in the mindset to make a purchase there, and Twitter in and of itself is really not optimized to provide information for purchases anyway.
For social channels to succeed and driving e-commerce, they will have to build standalone customer experiences on different platforms, or focus their efforts on driving consumers to make mobile purchases.
Use the media for its intended purpose and don’t risk alienation and dissatisfaction by “pushing” product or services on the social platform user. By choice, then it should work. I like the idea of using the browsing through the social site, and if the user sees something of interest — “pin it” and send me a reminder. But the key is only if I opt-in to the solution. It is all about preferences and meeting the unique needs and desires of the user. If desired or invited — you win. If it is contrived, you lose or worse you try and fail because you added a functionality to your social site not because it was a user “want” or “ask,” but due to reasons that much more to do with asset value vs. lifting user satisfaction and loyalty to the site.
From an innovation/solution standpoint — but only if the user base wants it — Twitter, Snapchat, Facebook and others could provide “soft points” in return for likes, engagement and purchase. A give and get relationship could provide a foundation for commerce that is sustainable. Just putting the functionality on the site and hoping a social site user clicks and buys is a “wish,” not a plan.
Kim Garretson has the correct approach in thinking through this topic — start with the consumer. She/He have to travel a Path to Purchase on small ticket and big ticket items. Either one can impact needs or wants.
Listen to the consumer. Just because they have an eyeball on Facebook or Twitter, doesn’t mean that they are ready to buy. Consumers go to shopping for apparel, electronics, an automobile, beauty products, etc. throughout the year, only to walk out of a store without making a purchase.
Prosper databases point to the fact that the omnichannel (or opti-channel) consumer (the who) is nimble enough to navigate what, where, why, when, and how they pay. They’ll do it on their terms, as they are the center of the equation.
Social media has similarities to, but is not the same as shopping with others in a social way. The content and context of social media in its present form is way up the purchase funnel; disassociated from the notion of purchase. A product or brand’s presence in social media serves to perhaps influence and maybe inspire, which puts it squarely in an old advertising model. Not much social, really, about that. Do I attribute higher value to a product because my friends are credited with doing so on Facebook? Meh. It’s still advertising.
There may be an opportunity “between” the social platforms. Like Kim Garretson said, something apart from the platforms that can aggregate my likes may have merit. When apps talk to apps on our behalf we may see (and be able to track) social media’s influence on purchases. Will Facebook or Twitter have a wish button that loads products onto my Amazon wish list? Likely not, but think about it. It could work.
It is important not to overlook the powerful combination social content and commerce. Social networks are well suited as a marketing tool more so than a transactional one, great for driving conversation and engagement with a brand, but less useful for direct sales. Social shopping is better suited to sites where there is already an engaged and committed community.
For example, The Beautyst, an online beauty community and store launched in 2011, brings together a community of 250,000 “beautystas,” 650 beauty bloggers and offers more than 20,000 products — it is the ultimate online destination for essential makeup tips, beauty news and online shopping. The site provides extensive product choice to the “beautystas” and offers brands a new e-commerce channel that harnesses the power of The Beautyst’s social following and community — a potent combination of content and commerce.
This combination of content and commerce is one rich with potential for retailers of all sizes and types, and is also suitable for publishers. Any publisher with an active community can deploy these principles allowing readers to buy the products they recommend. This means that they prevent readers purchasing on another website after taking advice from them, and they offer an additional service to their readers without them directly buying the products. There is no investment for the publisher, and they can preserve their all-important editorial independence and integrity.
Twitter’s removing of “buy” buttons does not suggest social shopping is lost. But it makes us think about how we buy, where we buy and what we buy.
As for how we buy, Twitter’s experiment showed in-the-moment buying didn’t work. Users’ penchant for impulse content snacking doesn’t translate to impulse purchases. But as others have pointed out, social networks still influence the research phase of the path to purchase.
As for where we buy, Twitter isn’t the bellwether for social media. Shopify found relatively low conversion rates from Twitter from visitors to its 100,000+ online stores. On the other hand, Facebook visitors converted to buyers at nearly 2.5X Twitter’s rate, and even Vimeo visitors converted at 1.5X the rate. Video consistently drives higher intent to purchase.
As for what we buy, it’s obvious that some categories are better for social shopping and better for certain social networks. Not surprisingly, Facebook is the leading source of social buyers for most categories, especially photography, sports/recreation, and pet supplies, where it represents nearly 95% of orders. But Pinterest dominates for antiques and collectibles at 74% of orders, according to Shopify. Youtube wins on digital products.
I don’t “buy” that social media has failed as an e-commerce channel.