“27% of the respondents reported spam selling on social commerce platforms.“

GoodFirms, a widely renowned research, ratings, and reviews platform, has recently unveiled a new research article, “Social Commerce – Progress and Future: GoodFirms Survey 2022”. The research attempts to identify and analyze the current state of social commerce, its key drivers, opportunities, challenges, and future scope of social commerce.

GoodFirms’ survey on social commerce details how transactional activities occur in digitally intensive social environments. From showcasing products and creating shoppable content to in-built payment procedures and AI-driven chatbot conversation, brands conduct multiple activities within their social shops.

GoodFirms’ survey further reveals the top marketing strategies used in social commerce to boost brand awareness, sales, and customer engagement, including user feedback requests, availing of customized choices, use of eye-catching graphics and videos, promotion of the brand through famous influencer/people, direct linkage to the shopping cart, and others.

“Instagram is the most preferred platform for purchasing products online followed by Facebook, Amazon Live, Snapchat, Pinterest, TikTok, WeChat, and Verint.”

Further, the survey reveals that 48.6% of the surveyees prefer virtual try-on clothing and accessories on social commerce platforms, making VR an ideal medium for product evaluation.

In this research conducted by GoodFirms, about 21.6% of the surveyees responded to purchasing products from live-streaming events on social media platforms. Furthermore, 62.2% of the surveyees indicated that they use virtual worlds created in the Metaverse for social shopping.

The research further focuses on common challenges people face while purchasing from social commerce platforms. About 45.9% of social commerce users said that they were redirected to another unrelated website, around 40.2% complained about customer service-related issues, 37.8% people pointed out the unavailability of their preferred payment mode, 27% of the respondents faced spam attempts, 18.1% faced invalid coupon code issues, 13.5% faced checkout issues, 10.8% faced stockout issues. Only around 10.8% of the respondents had a seamless buying experience.

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The research also focuses on the rising trends in social commerce. About 23.5% of the surveyees like group shopping with friends on social commerce platforms, Instagram’s visual store, live streaming e-commerce for higher engagement, shoppable Instagram posts, conversion-led commerce, social media influencers, and many more.

GoodFirms concludes that social commerce is a highly useful platform for businesses looking to expand their reach and increase sales. Social commerce also makes it easier for customers to access the products they want and simultaneously creates new opportunities for online sellers.

• Social commerce is an effective platform that allows customers to browse, research, and purchase things in one place.
• 86.5% of the respondents prefer Instagram for buying products.
• 56.8% of the surveyees buy products on the advice of social media influencers.
• 48.6% of the respondents prefer virtual try-on clothing and accessories on various social commerce platforms.
• 21.6% of the surveyees have purchased products from social media live-streaming events.
• 62.2% of the respondents prefer using virtual worlds created in Metaverse for social shopping.
• 40.2% of surveyees are unhappy with social commerce brands’ customer services.
• 37.8% of the customers did not find their preferred payment mode while purchasing via social commerce channels.
• 27% of the surveyees reported spam selling on social commerce platforms.
• 54.1% of the surveyees preferred buying recommendations features in social commerce platforms.
• 18.9% of respondents use social commerce to know and compare the prices of products.
• 48.6% of surveyees prefer social media to learn about newly launched products.
• 23.5% of the surveyees like group shopping with friends on social commerce platforms.
• 51.4% of the surveyees believe that social commerce is the future of e-commerce.

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