Social commerce, or shopping via social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram, has seen interesting movement over the last year.
While there was steady year-on-year consumer engagement with social commerce (11 per cent in both 2016 and 2017), there was a 128 per cent year-on-year growth in businesses now accepting payments via social media platforms (7 per cent in 2016, 16 per cent in 2017).
PayPal Australia managing director, Libby Roy said, “The explosive growth in businesses accepting social commerce shows Australian businesses are adopting new channels with the goal to meet consumers where they’re spending the majority of their personal time online.
“When businesses can capture a sale on social media at the point of consumer discovery it drops the cost of acquiring dramatically. The current retail environment is more complex than ever and there are deep interlinkages between online, mCommerce, social commerce and in-store—which all have to integrate to achieve best results. Retailers now have to think about their overarching strategy across all engagement channels to effectively compete.
“With more than a third of Australian businesses citing a lack of knowledge or understanding as the reason for not offering social payments, it’s really important that businesses invest and upskill to start engaging consumers in the social contexts they use every day.”
This story was originally published by Appliance Retailer.
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