Tag: social commerce

Viber Partners With Macy’s And Rakuten To Bring Shopping Into Chat App

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Messaging app Viber, which enjoys 260 million monthly active users worldwide, announced the launch of a new in-chat Instant Shopping feature that will integrate ecommerce features directly into the app. The new feature will enable Viber users to search for and share items without leaving the chat window, though the chat app has yet to integrate a payment solution so shoppers will be directed to the third-party retailer to complete the purchase.

The company says it has forged partnerships with two major retailers at launch – Macy’s and Rakuten.com, the ecommerce site formerly known as Buy.com was acquired by Japanese tech titan Rakuten in 2010, who also acquired Viber in 2014. The new feature will become available in the U.S. on March 6 in beta and Viber plans to roll out the feature globally throughout 2017.

What Brands Need To Do
Conversational commerce has been gaining traction in the U.S. lately thanks to Amazon Alexa’s ecommerce integrations and Facebook’s continuous efforts to make Messenger retail-friendly. As the big tech companies continue to explore the ecommerce potential in conversational contexts to cater to changing consumer behavior on mobile and a shift in brand-customer interaction, brands and retailers need to take note and start experimenting with conversational commerce in order to stay ahead of the digital curve.

How We Can Help
Based on our extensive experience in building branded chatbots to reach consumers, the Lab has developed a dedicated conversational practice called Dialogue. The NiroBot we built in collaboration with Ansible for Kia is a good example of how Dialogue can help brands build a conversational experience supercharged by our stack of technology partners with best-in-class solutions and an insights engine that extracts business intelligence from conversational data. If you’re interested in learning more about this or have a client opportunity, please reach out to our Client Services Director Samantha Holland ([email protected]) to schedule a visit to the Lab.

 

Source: VentureBeat

Instagram Updates Stories With Direct Links And More

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
On Thursday, Instagram updated its app to add some neat new features to its Stories feature. Besides a built-in Boomerang mode and support for tagging other Instagram users in Stories, this update brings an important function to the app –– the ability to add URL links to their stories that viewers can open without leaving Instagram.

To keep the Stories free of long ugly URLs, Instagram is adding a “See More” button to the bottom of any story that includes a link. Users who tap on the button will be directed to the destination page via an in-app web browser. At launch, this link feature will only be available to verified Instagram accounts.

What Brands Should Do
This update shows Instagram’s determination in improving Stories to better compete with Snapchat, and the addition of links in particular should come as a useful tool for content creators and brands. Instagram has long resisted clickable links, limiting them to one per account profile, and only recently started supporting direct links in its ad products. Now brands on Instagram can use Stories as a call-to-action tool to drive traffic and encourage sign-up. Retailers in particular should take advantage of this new feature to expand their social commerce efforts to Instagram.  

 

Source: TechCrunch

Burberry Partners With Sephora For Buyable, Personalized Pinterest Board

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Burberry is venturing into social commerce as it teams up with cosmetics retailer Sephora and Pinterest to promote its new mascara line to beauty shoppers. The luxury brand is leveraging Pinterest’s API to create dynamic “beauty boards” that display personalized product suggestions and makeup tips based on the cosmetic preferences users indicate in a Burberry-sponsored questionnaire. The products featured on the beauty board are also buyable on Sephora’s website via clickthrough. To raise awareness for the campaign, Burberry is cross-promoting with Sephora on social media and bought “Promoted Pins” to reach more Pinterest users.

What Brands Need To Do
By offering beauty shoppers a personalized product discovery experience, Burberry is adding a hook to this social commerce campaign to reel in intrigued customers. Besides Burberry, fashion brands such as J.Crew and Madewell have started experimenting with flash sales on Instagram. As more and more brands experiment with selling directly to customers via social channels, brands can take a cue from Burberry’s approach and create personalized and interactive user experiences for their social commerce efforts.

 

Source: Glossy

Dior Dabbled In Social Commerce On WeChat

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Dior has become the first luxury brand to dabble in social commerce by hosting a flash sale on China’s leading messaging app WeChat. The French fashion brand launched its WeChat shop on August 1st and promoted a limited edition of its Lady Dior bag via its official WeChat subscription account and WeChat Moments, a Facebook News Feed-like stream of social posts that WeChat integrated into the messaging app. The bag, priced at 28,000 yuan ($4,210), sold out within a day.

Social commerce is one of the leading features of WeChat, and it has taken off remarkably among Chinese mobile users. Dior is far from the first brand to host a successful flash sale event on WeChat. Previously, local brands such as smartphone maker Xiaomi and skincare brand WIS Professional have seen great results from their social commerce efforts on WeChat.

What Brands Need To Do
Although messaging app-based social commerce has yet to take off in the U.S., leading messaging apps such as Facebook Messenger and Kik have been working to emulate WeChat’s success and building out social commerce features in their apps. Some brands, such as fashion brands J.Crew and Madewell, have started experimenting with flash sales on Instagram. As more and more consumers are opting for messaging apps as their main communication channel, brands need to follow the audience and start experimenting with social commerce to sell directly to consumers.

For more information on how brands can effectively reach consumers on messaging apps and other conversational interfaces, please check out the first section of our Outlook 2016.

 

Source: China Daily

 

Pinterest Adds Shopping Cart, Expands Visual Search And Buyable Pins

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Pinterest made a few announcements on Tuesday to boost its ecommerce features. To start with, the company unveiled a brand new “shopping cart” feature that follows users across devices and allows them to purchase multiple products from different merchants at once. The company also announced that Buyable Pins, which debuted on its mobile app last summer, are now coming to the web. The company is also extending the visual search feature that it has been testing to let users search for similar items shown within a post.

What Brands Need To Do
According to a recent study by Millward Brown, 83% of active Pinterest users have purchased a product because of something they saw on the site. As Pinterest continues to build out its ecommerce features, brands interested in social commerce, especially those whose target audiences overlap with Pinterest users, should take note and learn to leverage them to boost direct sales. For example, adding support for the “shopping cart” and experimenting with Buyable Pins would be a good place to start.

 

Source: AdWeek

Facebook Tests Social Commerce Payments In Thailand

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Facebook again shows its ambition in conquering social commerce with a new trial that launched in Thailand. Working with local fin-tech company 2C2P, Facebook integrated their digital payment product Qwik into its platform to enable users to pay for products listed on Facebook Pages without leaving the social network. Users will be able to complete purchases with a credit card, debit card, or even online bank transfer online with just a few clicks. Multiple sources in Thailand’s ecommerce space reported that Facebook is planning to roll out the trial to other countries in Southeast Asia over time.

Why Brands Should Care
Facebook has been working on incorporating payment solutions into its platform for a few years now, most recently adding a payment product to its Messenger app to allow users to link their debit card to the messaging app and send payments to their friends by striking up a conversation. This new trial reveals Facebook’s plan to keep the payment process entirely on its platform. Whereas Twitter has all but given up on its Buy Button, Facebook still seems to be rather confident in building out its commerce features and making its platform more business-friendly. Any brands that wish to sell directly on social platforms should heed Facebook’s developments in this domain.

 

Source: TechCrunch

Shopify Launches iOS Keyboard To Help Brands Sell On Social Channels

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Shopify is making it easier for brands to sell on social and messaging platforms with the launch of an iOS keyboard app. Named Shopkey, the app will be to be integrated with product catalogs so that merchants using Shopify’s software can easily find and send product pictures and purchase links to their customers via an interface akin to a sticker keyboard.

What Brands Need To Do
Though still in its nascent stage, conversational commerce has been gaining momentum among online retailers. In China, popular messaging app WeChat has seen considerable success in integrating ecommerce into its platform. Therefore, brands looking to sell directly to consumers via messaging and social platforms should consider utilizing this keyboard app to quickly respond to customers’ requests and move them down the sales funnel.

For more information on how brands can develop authentic brand voices and sell on conversational interfaces, check out our Outlook 2016.

 

Source: Buzzfeed

Header image from Shopkey’s App Store Page

Best Of The Lab 2015: Social Commerce Is Heating Up

Posted on by Lab Team

Welcome to the Lab’s year-end review, looking back at some of our best and most popular posts from 2015.

One of the key trends from this year was the surge of social commerce, i.e. ecommerce on social media channels. All big social channels came out with some variations of “buy buttons” and made a play for ecommerce dollars. Besides, brands have also been experimenting with new ways to engage with consumers on social channels, either through custom emojis or messaging apps. Is your brand ready to sell on social channels?

On Trend: Social Commerce Heats Up Again With “Buy Buttons”

ABC Uses Custom Hashtag-Emoji Combo To Unlock Previews On Twitter

Chinese Jewelry Retailer Deploys In-Store Beacons Via WeChat

 

Brands Engaging Fans On Twitter With Native Polls

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Last week Twitter quietly unveiled a new feature that allows simple, two-answer polls to be natively embedded into Tweets. Only select accounts have been granted access to this new feature, according to Twitter, but many major brands, especially those in sports, are already using the new tool to engage with their followers with simple, fun questions. The polls are visible on the desktop and mobile apps for 24 hours by default, with voting results only revealed after the polls expire.

What Brands Need To Do
This feature offers brands a new, low-barrier way to engage with their fans on Twitter, while also giving brands a chance to receive direct feedback. Besides, brands can also use this new tool to organize simple Twitter contests. For instance, last Friday, Tesco unveiled a pick-your-favorite cookie poll that also promised winners digital coupons. As social commerce continues to gain momentum, this new poll feature could play an important supporting role in engaging online shoppers, and brands of all types would be wise to start experiment with it.

 

Source: Marketing Land

Facebook Partners With Shopify To Build Shop Sections On Pages

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
A week after Facebook first announced the addition of a new mobile-optimized Shop section to Pages, Canadian ecommerce platform Shopify is revealed as the partner that will be powering those new shopping channels on the social network. Shopify says the feature will be made available for all page-owners for free, and merchants can active it by simply adding the Facebook sales channel within the Shopify dashboard in the “coming weeks”. In related news, Shopify has also been selected by Amazon as a preferred Webstore alternative, as the ecommerce giant begin shutting down its own Webstore ecommerce platform in July.

What Brands Should Do
The new Shop section allows businesses to sell directly from their Pages, and merchants that are already using Shopify should definitely take advantage of this new partnership. As Shopify allows Shopify shoppers to save their payment information for future purchases, it can create a frictionless shopping experience, which is crucial for conversion rates. As mobile commerce continues to grow substantially, retail and CPG brands would be wise to make use of this new mobile-friendly feature.

The Lab has always kept an eye out for the ever-changing consumer behaviors in ecoomerce. To learn more about the shifting ecommerce space and the opportunities in social commerce, you can contact our Engagement Director Samantha Holland ([email protected]) and schedule a visit to the Lab.

 

Source: Marketing Land