Will social commerce (or mobile commerce, or hyper-local commerce integration, or Facebook shops...) will become the new norm for all consumers? By getting caught up by black-and-white questions like this, we risk missing the true complexity of multi-channel shopping.
Multichannel does not mean that all consumers will use all the channels available to them. By neglecting consumer preferences, we risk missing the opportunity to make our interactions with consumers as engaging as possible - and seriously risk alienating consumers.
Our Manifesto was recently dicsussed on Radio 4's consumer affairs show, You and Yours, where the in-house consumer advocates seemed impressed by our commitment to publishing all reviews - good or bad, 5 or 500.
You can listen to the program again on BBC iPlayer (starting from 23.35 minutes in), or read the transcript:
The obvious benefit of hosting Q&As on your site is that it removes doubts from the minds of consumers and helps them make a purchasing decision, giving businesses a healthy bump to their conversion. But how can this user generated content contribute to your SEO strategy?
Facebook’s announcements last week at F8 herald a new era of possibilities for extending social throughout the web – and the future is particularly exciting for social commerce.
Social commerce, like all commerce, runs on a currency of trust. That trust has been damaged in recent years by public scandals around businesses faking reviews, deleting negative reviews and paying for positive feedback.
As well as being illegal, this unscrupulous manipulation of social commerce negatively impacts every business and every consumer using reviews, consumer Q&A or other social commerce content. Consumers lose faith in one of the most popular and useful shopping tools; while businesses lose the boosts to sales and consumer loyalty social commerce can deliver.
Multichannel integration doesn't have to be about offering brand new tools and experiences to your customers. In fact, it's usually better to think about how multichannel can combine the best of existing channels into a seamless experience for customers. This is an area in which Jessops, the UK's leading photography specialist retailer, and Pago, a new Californian start-up, are excelling.
Jessops tend to take a thoughtful approach to recent developments in technology and consumer habits, crafting responses that really work for the brand and its customers.
The past two years have seen the greatest shift in retail since the rise of online shopping.
Brands can no longer rely on shepherding consumers through a tidy funnel towards the final conversion. Instead, they must respond to a new purchase journey driven by consumers, powered by search and social, and reaching across dozens of different touchpoints, from mobile to bricks and mortar stores.
Brands are often nervous about hosting consumer conversations about their products or service on their own sites (or Facebook pages, or their other web real estate). They worry that the discussions will be hijacked by a few cranks and they'll end up with nothing but criticism, posioning their reputation and depressing sales.
We've analysed the data from our curated consumer Q&A tool, Reevoo Conversations, and the results indicate that brands have nothing to worry about.
We're very pleased to see that our new partner GetItNow.gr has won an award for the best use of technology for customer service.
Social commerce is starting to take off in Greece, with forward-thinking retailers integrating consumer opinions into their ecommerce sites. That's why we're glad to be working with GetItNow.gr. GetItNow is the country's largest pure-play online retailer, and they've just launched iPhone/iPad apps to extend their multichannel reach.
Today sees the launch of Best Buy's new mobile site. It's great to see a major retailer building a mobile site that rivals the shopping experience on their main site.
With 38% of people already using their mobiles as a shopping tool - and the number purchasing through mobiles steadily increasing - Best Buy have timed this launch perfectly to mirror changing consumer habits.