Social Commerce in India : Market & Product Study by Rahul Malik
Social Reselling Commerce
Rahul Malik : Linkedin
What is Social Commerce?
Social commerce is the process of selling products and services directly on social media platforms like facebook, whatsapp, twitter, instagram etc that support social interactions and user contributions.
Benefits to Customers & Merchants :
- Direct interaction between merchants and customers
- Opportunities to chat, rate, share and advise with each other — Convenient online experience
- Better bargaining power for customers
- Easy for Small Business & Micro Entrepreneur to build online presence
Social Commerce Formats :
- Peer-to-peer sales
- Community Shopping
- Social reselling
- Shopping Integrated in Social Media
- Group buying
By 2025, India’s e-commerce market will reach US$ 220 billion while social commerce can potentially grow to become a US$ 100 billion market.
Social Reselling Commerce (S2B2C)
Company helps source products directly from suppliers/merchants (S) and make catalogs available to resellers (B) on its platform, resellers then sell the products to their social contacts i.e. final consumers
Key Channels & Categories in India
Grocery and Fashion are the leading categories on Whatsapp followed by Sports
Whatsapp is being used by >2X the number of resellers on leading commerce platforms
Why Social Reselling? — Benefits
■ Multiple Social Channels : or direct interaction between reseller and the customer
■ Reseller/Other Customer’s Recommendations : share opinions and reviews
■ Curated Shopping and personalized experience for the customer
■ High Trust : Word of mouth
■ Unique Products
■ Low Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC)
Since platform controls the whole supply chain and distribution channel, it provides a wide selection of products, logistic services, customer service, discounted product pricing, clear sales and commission system to reward resellers, support on marketing content.
How to enhance platform growth?
Core Metric = “Orders per Reseller per month”
Orders per reseller per month is a function of :
Customer Reach x Probability of Purchase x Repeat Rate
Product Features
1A. # OF CUSTOMERS REACHED — UNIFIED MESSAGING, NEW CHANNELS
Engage easily with customers without leaving App
1. Single Interface : Resellers manage all conversations across multiple messaging channels like Facebook, whatsapp, telegram etc. from within the app to improve seller efficiency
2. Support customers, address pre sales queries, offer product advice easily from within app
3. Share products, catalogs and collections across multiple messaging channels or groups at the same time
ADD MORE CHANNELS & PROVIDE MULTI-LINGUAL SUPPORT
1. Highlight/ integrate more channels like Sharechat, Instagram etc
2. Multi lingual support in app for top regional languages
1B. # OF CUSTOMERS REACHED — ADD NEW PRODUCT CATEGORIES
Recommendation : Add new high growth categories like handicrafts, household and kitchen goods, sports, food
2A. PURCHASE PROBABILITY — RIGHT PRODUCT AT RIGHT PRICE
CUSTOMER PROFILE AND AI POWERED SUGGESTIONS TO RESELLERS
■ Suggest product recommendations to resellers personalized for each customer based on customer attributes, profile and engagement data
■ Content and messaging recommendations : In-depth analysis of sales engagement execution followed in some cases by data driven automated suggestions by using conversational intelligence which records and analyze the conversations
■ Discover derived attributes for each customer like :
- Preferred Category
- Price Range
- Order Frequency
- Preferred Payment Medium
-Customer Performance Score
-Preferred Messaging Channel
■ Predict the best time to share the product for better engagement and complete transactions more quickly
■ Provide suggested price for a product based on historical data of same/similar product
2B. PURCHASE PROBABILITY — IMPROVE RESELLER RESPONSIVENESS
BUILD NLP BASED BOT TO IMPROVE RESELLER RESPONSIVENESS
■ Auto-Mode : Ease resellers by adding automated replies to customers queries about products, shipping, order status, refunds, cancellation etc.
■ Complete transactions more quickly by automating order placement using the bot
■ Personalized messaging to customers on the preferred messaging app will build loyalty
■ Message broadcasts, offers, coupons and sales alert shortcuts within app will help increase sales
2C. PURCHASE PROBABILITY — SALES PITCH, INCENTIVES, TRAINING
BUILD OFFLINE SALES TEAM (STAR RESELLERS AS AREA SALES HEAD)
■ Leverage sales skills of star resellers to train new resellers and create mini sales teams
■ Offer incentive to Star resellers on every sale beyond a threshold sale of their mini team
■ Gamify sales of mini teams on Meesho with a leaderboard and incentivise top team of the month *Source : Zinnov Report
3A. REPEAT RATE — IN ORDER EXPERIENCE
DELIGHT CUSTOMERS by creating interactive messaging for better experience and complete transactions more quickly
■ Create orders, track past orders on customer’s behalf and share payment links with shortcuts from within chat window
■ Increase customer satisfaction and complete transactions more quickly
■ Automated Notifications sent to customers at every order stage
■ Shortcuts for actions like Ask Name, Ask Address, Ask Mobile #, Ask email
3B. REPEAT RATE — IMPROVE POST ORDER EXPERIENCE & RETURNS
■ Automated Responses : Exceed customer expectation and send immediate responses to frequent customer queries about shipping, order status, tracking, return policies etc.
■ Use NLP to assist with returns and replacements by automating returns/ replacement for majority of the cases
#DOSHARE
#socialcommerce #social #socialmedia #socialreselling #ecommerce #digitalmarketing #meesho #glowroad #shop101 #facebook #whatsapp #instagram #twitter #tiktok #productmanagement #productmanager #product #market #study
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References
● https://www.smartinsights.com/ecommerce/social-commerce/social-commerce-trends-for-2020-you-need-to-look-out-for/
● https://inc42.com/buzz/homemaker-resellers-zinnov-ecommerce/
● https://walkthechat.com/close-look-chinas-revenue-sharing-platforms-yunji-beidian-global-scanner/
● https://www.fbicgroup.com/sites/default/files/CNE_Yunji_1.pdf
● https://www.gsma.com/mobilefordevelopment/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Social-commerce-in-emerging-markets.pdf
● Survey conducted by Nielsen for Sequoia India, across 2170 MSMEs and 1,561 consumers in India in 2019
● Internet Society of China and Chuangqi Social Commerce Research Center Report 2019: EMarketer report China
● Unravelling the Indian Consumer 2019 — RAI Deloitte report; Sequoia internal estimates
