Online Shopping and Social Media: Friends or Foes?
The world is becoming more and more digital and there’s no going back. Probably we already read something about it on Facebook or saw someone tweeting this topic, but if not, let’s hold the scroll we’re doing on Instagram and look around for a few seconds.
It’s easy to find many people using their smartphones, right? Probably yes, and we don’t even know where you are from. The truth is we live in a modern, digital and online era, where many actions that required more effort some years ago are, now, a click away. In this article, we’ll focus on two specific online activities and try to find if there’s connection between them.
One of them will be largely used to share the conclusions we’ll reach, that’s right: social networks. Predictions say that in 2018, there will be around 2.67 billion social media users around the globe, so, let’s use this potential.
The second one isn’t less useful or mediatic, we bet you use it in a regular basis, or do you buy everything in store? If you do, you really are one of a kind, since, only in September 2016, approximately 1.61 billion people worldwide made online purchases.
We can’t deny the influence of these activities on today’s lifestyle. The average person spends almost two hours daily browsing social media and in 2017 there were 217 million online shoppers in the US.
But are these two activities related? Studies say they are. The disagreement only begins when we’re trying to decide if they are friends or foes.
The Problem
The time spent on social networks is, among other things, time to social discovery. Every user is exposed to a huge amount of shared information that is providing a wider set of preferences that were, at the time, unknown for that one person. We all have some habits, routines or products we found about on social networks, either by influencers or even by friends/connections.
Allied with this, it was also found new information related with shopping in social networks. It is proved to offer higher margins than the one present in shopping websites itself.
We could almost jump to the conclusion that social networks are fomenting online shopping, but it’s not that easy. On the other hand, the more time spent in social networks, less time spent online shopping. Logical, right?
So, the question is, are social networks improving the potential of online shopping or is online shopping being replaced by time spent on social networks?
Let’s cut suspense, the answer is: the use of social network is positively related to online shopping, but in the short term they’re negatively related.
Still confused, right? Let’s watch it closer.
Online Shopping and Social Media, are they friends?
There’s a constant exposure of information about products and brands on social networks. Through ads, e-wom and friends’ recommendations. Brands also use their social networks channels to publish photos and features about what they are offering. The consumer experience and review became an even more important issue since we live in an era where everything is shareable online — and this can affect the brand image, either positively or negatively. This exposure enables people to be aware of purchasing options, converts the buying process into a well-informed decision, which allows the reduction of the search costs and increase the probability of buy.
Or are they foes?
Besides the relation mentioned above, the time spent on social networks may have a negative impact in the e-commerce process. People spend too much time on the internet. On average, “consumers spend approximately 30% of their internet time on social media and only 8% on online shopping”. It is proven that the more time spent on social networks, the less people are likely to buy online. It means that if the consumer spends most of the time he allocates to the internet, specifically in social media, the less time he has for online shopping.
However, people that are engaged on social networks for a long time are most likely to buy more and from a larger number of online retailers.
In conclusion
The relation between these two concepts is undeniable and they can be considered as friends and foes, since they influence each other behavior positively and negatively.
This influence depends on the time of usage of social networks. In the long term the usage of social networks has a positive relation with e-commerce since people start discovering new products and brands through them. But in the short term happens the opposite since people are using most of their time on internet, specifically on social networks and are not still engaged with brands.
Company’s should not be discouraged if their campaigns on social media are not being converted in sales as they expected because their payoff might come in the long term.
If the continuous use of social media increases shopping online, engagement of customers becomes an important factor. This can be made through social networks where companies can target the right audience to promote specific products.
Of course that the online shopping activity will be stronger for brands or products that are usually shared on social networks and that are unplanned purchases, for example, chocolates. In the other hand, if the product is not usually shared on this channel and the purchase is planned, the online shopping activity will be weaker, this happens for example with automotive parts.
