Emergence of digital malls
Understanding the shift of shopping from search and filter to discovery through social media
Click here to join FutureX Learning community on Whatsapp.
Amazon vs. Flipkart
Where do you shop?
Facebook, said someone.
Yes, it might very well be the age of social commerce, i.e. shopping on social media platforms like FB, Instagram, Tiktok etc.
Do you know that ~70% of Amazon shoppers never click past the first page of search results? That’s because the platform’s homogenised product listings—title, price, photo, and star rating—are built for search, not discovery. Purchases on traditional ecommerce platforms rely on user intent—customers typically search for a product and select one of the top results.
Then there are people who believe the future of e-commerce is Discovery through social media - find products you normally wouldn’t search for on an e-commerce platform. Think of it as the type of serendipitous shopping behaviour that you experienced by visiting a mall. This is what Facebook wants to do through its recently launched Facebook Shops - blend e-commerce with the world's biggest social media platform. Instagram accounts for 30-50% of all e-commerce transactions in Thailand. You would surely know how many Insta handles sell clothes, handmade gifts, jewellery etc. Think about how Facebook can use your buying activity from Facebook Shops to personalize your experience on its apps (Facebook/ Insta/ Whatsapp) and show you more relevant content. In China, brands create mini-program e-commerce stores of their own on WeChat to drive traffic.
Shopify is experimenting with the same with its ‘Shop’ app. FB shops is also powered by Shopify. There's a bigger play here in the partnership to take on Amazon. Amazon is great for explicit queries, but people need a place to discover the thousands of quality brands that aren’t on Amazon. If someone wants a cool new backpack from a new-age company, where can they go to browse around? This is what Shopify is trying to solve for - build a digital mall, a way to browse products and wander through stores, but online.
Do you think people will shift from Amazon and start buying more products off these emerging digital malls?
•https://www.thedrum.com/opinion/2020/05/21/facebook-shops-the-launch-true-social-e-commerce-solution
•https://divinations.substack.com/p/shop-from-shopify-right-problem-wrong
•https://www.vox.com/recode/2020/5/19/21263898/facebook-shops-instagram-shopping-shopify-ecommerce