Riding largely on ‘discounted pricing’, e-commerce sensed the core of consumer shopping — where we can get this cheapest and most conveniently — and successfully, in no time, made e-shopping a natural extension of traditional shopping.
To push this shopping experience to the next level, some e-commerce platforms are now prefixing the word “social” to shopping. Social shopping is a buzzword that has been gaining momentum in India over the past few months, but what does it actually entail?
What is Social Shopping?
“Social shopping is more like building the most extensive discovery platform, where consumers come because they get to discover simply great products at affordable prices. And this discovery is best led through social channels,” explains Suchi Mukherjee, CEO and founder of Delhi-based social shopping platform, Limeroad.
In other terms, social shopping fills a fundamental desire of any shopper for social interaction and decision reassurance while they shop on the web.
For many, shopping from a screen simply isn’t as appealing as walking into a store and making a purchase, so social shopping aims to recreate the best parts of in-store shopping.
With social shopping, one are one click away from comparing prices, and can easily access reviews and feedback on that Zara dress or that Fossil watch.
Limeroad’s ‘scrapbook’ feature allows users create scrapbooks in which they put together looks by mixing and matching various product combinations and share with others who can browse through them and discover interesting looks. The feature works on a focused approach to retain a prolific relationship with both customers and the vendors on Limeroad’s marketplace.
“We make sure that the vendors are able to establish beautiful stores of their own without having to rely on excessive retail costs, while at the same time having access to an army of scrapbookers who are essentially helping them make their products look gorgeous and thereby reach out to millions of potential buyers. It’s an entirely symbiotic association between the vendor and the consumer,” says Mukherjee.
Where Limeroad presents the most preferred and unique products into one place, Klip.in, a two-year-old social shopping platform, gives users a unique and personal shopping feed.
“What makes Facebook social? It’s not just the network, but the fact that any update from people in your network comes to you, instead of you calling up all your friends to know what is going on in their lives. Similarly, on Klip, we bring the most happening fashion products relevant to your taste to your Klip feed every time you open our app or login to our site,” says Maneesh Madambath, co-founder of Klip.in.
“We also have a feature to follow your favourite online stores pages. We have users who follow up to 80-100 stores on Klip,” he adds.
What’s next?
Social shopping sites are sporadically launching in India with the hopes of becoming the Next Big Hit. So can it become a next chapter of the e-commerce story? “I think the step has already been taken,” Madambath says.
“Consumers are switching to platforms where the product comes to them instead of them having to go hunt them down. A segment going social is usually a natural fallout of information overload. Going social helps cut down the noise and makes things relevant to you. This makes the platform more sticky and therefore easier to create a loyal user base, as opposed to pure e-commerce, where after a sale the site has to start all over again to convert the user. On the other hand, social shopping platforms will have higher user retention,” he explains.
Echoing this sentiment, Mukherjee confirms that Limeroad has already disapproved many accepted notions in Indian online commerce through its social shopping feature.” The result of which can be tracked through our extraordinary organic traction.”
Madambath also believes that the social shopping’s future in India relies on the growing m-commerce landscape. “The key component of the growth of social shopping will be ” Mobile Penetration”. Social shopping platforms are inherently mobile-friendly. You have some time to kill? You can quickly open your app and search or skip a fresh set of products even if you have no intention to buy something, or simply discover a new store and follow them. This isn’t possible with an e-comm app. Online shoppers are likely to recognise this value and gravitate towards shopping via social apps,” Madambath concludes.
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