New Study Reveals that Brands Require Tech-Enabled Fulfillment to Grow in Social Commerce

Flowspace, in partnership with Digiday, conducted research into the state of social commerce and brands’ approach to fulfillment strategies

Flowspace, the ecommerce fulfillment platform empowering omnichannel brands to meet their customers’ post-purchase expectations, released “The State of Social Commerce: Approaching Platforms and Fulfillment in 2022.” The new study, conducted in partnership with Digiday, surveyed more than 100 brand executives to better understand how brands and retailers are prioritizing and evolving social commerce as a sales channel.

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“A technology-first fulfillment partner is essential to ensuring customers receive products promptly and consistently, no matter the sales channel”

As brands expand their omnichannel strategies to include social commerce, which is expected to be a $1.2T market by 2025, they are seeking solutions that allow them to offer the same fast, convenient product delivery consumers expect from any other ecommerce channel. The study found that improved fulfillment features, like integrated inventory and order management, two-day or less delivery offerings, and one-click checkout would lead brands to invest more in social commerce.

“A technology-first fulfillment partner is essential to ensuring customers receive products promptly and consistently, no matter the sales channel,” said Vincent Bradley, co-founder and CEO of Proper Wild, a DTC energy supplement brand that relies on Flowspace to power its fulfillment nationwide.

Social commerce enables brands to offer a direct path-to-purchase within social platforms, an emerging priority as the effectiveness of advertising on social decreases and brands seek new ways to engage their existing, engaged audiences. In order to drive performance and fulfillment within social commerce channels, brands are pursuing partners that offer them the integrated technology and capabilities to deliver the fast, seamless delivery their customers are accustomed to.

“The evolution of social media advertising into social commerce is as simple as engaging the right fulfillment partner,” said Anne Hallock, chief of staff, Flowspace. “Technology-powered fulfillment helps blend the digital and physical experience, providing omnichannel digital visibility into the physical requirements of selling through social.”

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Key takeaways from the report include:

• Brands are prioritizing social commerce as a customer acquisition/advertising strategy (45%), to retain ownership of customer data (43%), to develop long-term brand loyalty (33%), and to improve the customer experience (25%).
• Brands prefer social commerce tactics that enable them to drive awareness, engagement and interactions among consumers, including formats that provide a direct path to purchase: shoppable livestreams (63%), shoppable videos (44%), and social posts with a direct checkout option (43%).
• To improve social commerce fulfillment, more than half (55%) of brand respondents are investing in customer data platforms, followed by third-party ecommerce fulfillment tech and software (39%).
• Improved fulfillment features, like integrated inventory and order management (47%), two-day or less delivery offerings (30%), and one-click checkout (28%) would lead brands to invest more in social commerce.