New trends in social commerce – Ashley Dudarenok

 

Ashley Dudarenok

Social commerce is expected to grow exponentially until 2023 in North America, Europe, and Latin America, following the trends of market leader China, writes marketing expert Ashley Dudarenok. In Techn0de she describes three trends in social commerce brands have to know.

Ashley Dudarenok:

This year, it’s anticipated that social commerce will generate global sales of more than $1 trillion. And when it comes to social commerce, China is the market that stands out. Social commerce has expanded rapidly in the country, with a 40.25% increase in market size between 2021 and 2023. Between 2021 and 2025, the size of China’s market is anticipated to increase at a rate of 17% per year. …

Co-creating together with consumers is one of those trends, and Dudarenok looks at the example of Yili.

Brands can engage users on social media platforms by allowing them to interact or co-create engaging content as part of an effective strategy for increasing product promotion and awareness. This technique not only creates a user community but also increases brand visibility and engagement.

Take, for example, the milk brand Yili. Yili asked consumers to participate in a packaging design contest aimed at football enthusiasts to increase engagement and sales during the 2022 World Cup. Customers who spent a particular amount on items were entered into a lucky draw as part of the promotion.

As a result, visibility and sales increased significantly. The campaign received over 27.24 billion Weibo impressions and resulted in a 12.1% increase in sales, illustrating the potential of user participation and co-creation in brand promotion.

In light of this, fast-moving consumer goods brands can consider employing similar techniques by inviting consumers to co-create content during popular events, festivals, or marketing campaigns. This could involve a wide range of activities that tap into the creative potential of the consumer base.

More trends in Technode.

Ashley Dudarenok is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need her at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers’ request form.

You can get here the CHINA SOCIAL COMMERCE REPORT 2023.

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Social commerce: leading for sales in China - Shaun Rein

Shaun Rein

Chinese consumers love to follow their friends' recommendations for buying, and with a mobile at hand, social commerce has become a leading force, says business analyst Shaun Rein and author of The War for China's Wallet: Profiting from the New World Order, at the South China Morning Post. Fun in shopping has become for blue-collar workers as important as the price, he says.

The South China Morning Post:

“The potential of social commerce is huge because people like to buy what their friends recommend. Increasingly, in China’s e-commerce landscape, people don’t know what sales channel to trust, but if they see their friends purchasing things on social commerce sites they are more likely to buy,” said Shaun Rein, the managing director of China Market Research Group and author of The War for China’s Wallet: Profiting from the New World Order... 

“Social commerce becomes a form of low-cost mobile entertainment, especially for blue-collar workers. Almost everybody has a smartphone now and shopping is not only cheap but fun,” said Rein.

More at the South China Morning Post.

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Social commerce works better than ads - William Bao Bean

William Bao Bean interviewed

An interview with William Bao Bean[/caption] Chinese internet companies took the lead in selling through social commerce, rather than poorly working ads. China entrepreneur William Bao Bean explains how China is taking the lead from Western companies, at GetGlobal 2016 in Los Angeles. "Traditional ads are under pressure."

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China leads innovation in mobile - Helen Wang

Helen Wang

In China social commerce has become the backbone of e-commerce, writes author Helen Wang in Forbes. Chinese internet companies offer services, their Western competitors only dream of. "China will lead innovation in mobile commerce".

Helen Wang:

In China, social commerce has taken up a life of its own and become the backbone of e-commerce. 

While the “Ice Bucket Challenge” has gone viral on Facebook, Chinese consumers use social media in a much more thoughtful way. Instead of posting some silly videos and pictures, they turn to social media to solve real life problems, to seek advice from friends and opinion leaders, and to decide what products to buy or not to buy. 

For example, Tmall, China’s Amazon owned by Alibaba, integrated social media as a consumer-powered review and recommendation system. Consumers can rate the accuracy of product descriptions, the speed of delivery, and their satisfaction with customer service. Anyone who is interested in buying a product can see its scores. Tmall promotes products with higher scores by giving them more exposure. This has created a virtuous cycle that encourages better products and services, and consumers are at the center of it... 

We are seeing many exciting innovations in China’s social commerce sphere. Already, WeChat, a mobile message board with over half a billion users, has gone far beyond a social media tool. Users on WeChat can order a taxi or book a hotel – right there while they are chatting with friends. It has digital ID (using QR codes), interphone, and a shake function to link contacts. There is nothing like it in the West. Early this year, more than 5 million people linked their bank accounts on WeChat within two days. It has the potential to become a mobile and social commerce platform with integrated e-wallet and location based services, and much more. 

Moving forward, China will also lead innovation in mobile commerce. The country already boasts 700 million active smart phone users. The way people shop in China is very different from that in the West. In the West, e-commerce is very much computer-based, while mobile phones are merely a complementary tool to the personal computer. In China, mobile phones predominate people’s everyday lives. About 75 percent of Internet users browse it from their mobile phones. In 2013, 55 percent of consumers in China had used mobile payments, compared to only 19 percent in the US. 

Chinese are far savvier with mobile phones than with computers. Ten years ago, Chinese used text messages to vote for their popular singers. Today, Americans have just begun to adopt this method of communication. Businesses have started to use text messages to get feedback from customers. Politicians have begun to tap into the ubiquity of mobile phones to advocate their political agendas. 

In the past, many innovations originated in the West and spread to the rest of the world. But this is about to change. We expect to see more innovations in social and mobile commerce coming from China. And they will reshape the global business landscape.

More in Forbes.

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