The previous decade (2010 – 2020) was the age of online shopping where sales were driven by advertising and SEO. However, in the current decade (2020 – 2030), trends have changed. This is the era of social commerce where sales are led by advocacy. 

The Future of Social Commerce 2023 report by Duel analyzes social commerce trends to help brands understand their customers better. Let’s dive in!

The Future Of Social Commerce Report 2023 By Duel

About Duel

Duel is an advocate management SaaS platform that is used by brands to increase brand advocacy and build their social commerce platforms. Duel’s mission is to drive growth by improving brand perception and integrity, and change the way that businesses operate.

What is Social Commerce? 

Social commerce refers to a type of eCommerce where the buying and selling of products happens within social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram. Here, goods are sold to consumers directly and the entire purchasing process gets completed without the consumers ever having to leave the social media platform. For example: Instagram shopping. 

Key Statistics From The Future of Social Commerce 2023 Report 

Social Commerce Trends From 2022 

The previous year saw a major shift in the world of social commerce. Here are some of the major trends according to Duel:

Market Trends: 

• Social media shopping (which includes social commerce, livestream shopping, and video shopping) has reached new heights of popularity. 
• Shoppers demand personalized experiences, but consumer trust in influencers has majorly declined due to them feeling that influencers lack authenticity. 
• Some brands have started integrating the metaverse and using it for advertising, but it hasn’t become mainstream yet. 

So, to gain more customers, brands need to work on delivering more cohesive shopping experiences across various platforms by selling their products in different channels. They also need to make the social media shopping experience more personalized by gathering data about the spending habits of customers.

Consumer Trends:

• Consumers want instant gratification from their shopping experience. They expect quick deliveries and want products to be accessible to everyone.
• Many customers prefer the ROBO model: Research Online, Buy Offline.
• Consumers place more trust in user-generated content than influencers or brand advertisements. 
• More and more consumers are using TikTok and Instagram as a search engine, turning these two platforms into Google’s top competitors. 

To increase sales, brands need to include product locators, helping customers turn their social media shopping experience more seamless. Brands also need to create a strong presence in photo and video-based platforms such as Instagram, TikTok, and Pinterest to make their products more discoverable. 

Brand Challenges:

Here are the main challenges that brands faced last year:

• More and more brands are trying to dip their toes into UGC in lieu of creating their own content, but they often don’t know where to begin or how to go about it. 
• Influencer rates are increasing, and so are brands’ perception that these content creators are often unreliable. 
• Brands are struggling with brand perception since they no longer control the narrative. Every single person on social media has the power to tell a brand’s story, regardless of whether it is right or wrong, or positive or negative. 
• Brands are finding it difficult to mine first party data about their target audience. 

Creator Economy Trends:

Gone are the days when media companies and brands were the primary decision makers in deciding the content that people consumed. Today, that role is done by content creators. 

Source: Duel

• At least 50 million people consider themselves content creators, out of which 2 million earn enough to consider this their primary job.
• Micro and nano-influencers may have fewer followers, but they have more engagement, so they are trusted more by consumers. 
• The affiliate marketing industry is growing and provides a low-cost + low-risk alternative to brands. It’s also great for a brand’s SEO.
• Voice search via Siri, Alexa, and Google Home is on the rise. It refers to the process of customers searching for products by giving a voice command. 

To gain the trust of customers, brands need to seek out micro and nano influencers to partner with. In order to have their products show up on voice search results, brands need to improve their SEO. To save costs, brands can look into working with non-conventional creators. 

Source: Duel

Social Commerce Trends 

• Social commerce sales are forecast to increase exponentially in the coming years from $958 billion USD in 2022 to a whopping $3.37 trillion USD by 2028.
• As of 2021, Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok were the most popular platforms for social commerce. 
• Social commerce is led by advocacy where purchase decisions are made based on what others are saying about the brand. 

Based on the above trends, here’s what brands are prioritizing for this year:

Brand Priorities for 2023 

To drive up sales in 2023, chief marketing officers are prioritizing on the following:

• Understanding customer preferences better in order to turn their brands into a one-stop-shop and fulfill all of their customers’ needs
• Coming up with targeted campaigns and personalized offers based on analytics to increase conversions
• Making their products easily discoverable within Instagram 
• Use live streaming to sell products so that consumers get a chance to interact with the brands in real-time

Understanding Audiences

Duel pulled in some facts and figures from Latana’s State of Social Commerce report and came up with purchase behaviors of consumers from different generations. Here are the main takeaways:

• Millennials are the people who purchase on social media the most, followed by Gen Z and Gen X. Baby boomers are the most reluctant when it comes to social media shopping. In fact, as many as 40% of boomers would never even consider social commerce. So, brands need to tailor their campaigns according to their audience. 
• Among people of all generations, as many as 42% of users discover new products that they like via social media. 37% of people deliberately scour social media platforms to find out more about the products they like. This means brand advocacy is more important now than ever. 
• 65% of people would prefer buying from Facebook, while 40% would prefer Instagram. TikTok and Pinterest came in third with 18% each. This means brands need to have a presence on multiple platforms and establish a marketplace in these high converting channels.
• To make a purchase on social media, people expect the following: customer reviews, being shown products that are interesting to them, exclusive discounts, ease of use, different options for payment, and previous knowledge of the brand. If you want to increase sales via social commerce, you need to work on these verticals and improve your customer experience. 
• Here are some of the things that would stop users from purchasing via social media: lack of trust in the brand, poor reviews from other customers, and previous negative experiences with the brand. A small portion of people are also not comfortable sharing their personal information. 

The bottom line is that brand perception, social proof, as well as an easy and safe shopping experience are the things that most consumers look for when considering social media shopping. Now that you know what customers want, you can start building a strategy that will up your social commerce sales.