David Bridges
- Last year, industry insiders predicted that 2022 would be the year of social shopping in the US.
- So far, a number of social-media platforms have launched new shopping features.
- As the year closes, here’s the state of play when it comes to social shopping.
In 2022, tech giants set to bring social and livestream shopping to US customers.
Motivated by the success of these efforts in China and Southeast Asia — according to eMarketer, in China alone, social and livestream shopping accounted for 14% of the country’s $2.6 trillion e-commerce market in 2021 — US platforms have built infrastructure to facilitate this new way of purchasing.
From TikTok to YouTube, companies introduced features to encourage users to shop in their apps — including native checkout — and shoppable livestreams, photos, and videos. And while these commerce tools were introduced with fanfare, a number were later phased out.
“You’ll see a feature one minute, and it is removed the next,” said Camilo Becdach, a partner at the consultant firm McKinsey & Company who coauthored a new report on social commerce. “Some have argued that part of that is it just hasn’t worked in the US. I see that much more as it’s part of the experimentation.”
Becdach said he expects social commerce to mature quickly in the US over the next three years as tech platforms smooth out in-app purchasing and customers get more used to buying though social media.
The urgency to break into e-commerce spiked last year after Apple introduced new iOS privacy restrictions that hobbled the ability of apps like Snapchat and Instagram to measure targeted advertising — reducing value for advertisers. Google’s plan to do away with third-party cookies by 2024 is yet another reason platforms need e-commerce to be a strong source of revenue.
Different platforms are taking their efforts in varying directions in an attempt to figure out the formula for success.
Recent job openings from TikTok for US-based fulfillment and logistics roles show that the company is expanding its approach to shopping, moving beyond shoppable links and in-app features into e-commerce logistics.
“Everybody is trying to beef up their infrastructure for social commerce,” Jason Goldberg, the chief commerce-strategy officer at Publicis Groupe, told Insider. “I think there’s more of a survival imperative than ever for all these social platforms to figure out what their version of commerce is.”
These plans differ from those of peers like YouTube and Facebook, which offer in-app commerce solutions but require sellers to handle details like warehousing and shipping.
And it’s not just social platforms. The shift has inspired e-commerce companies like Shopify and Amazon, the latter of which owns the livestreaming platform Twitch, to add social features to their platforms. And retailers like Walmart are getting in on it, too: Walmart launched a new creator platform earlier this week to help influencers “monetize shoppable products” from the retailer.
It remains unclear whether consumers are ready to embrace this form of shopping, particularly with rampant inflation and a generally difficult economic climate. Influencers will play a key role in training US consumers to buy directly through social apps, Becdach said.
“It’s a new customer journey,” he said. “I think both brands and platforms are adapting to that.”
Here’s the current state of play in social shopping:
Maya Kensington
