The exponential growth of mobile commerce has triggered an increase in the use of social media for commercial purposes.

What is Social Commerce?

The process of selling items directly on social platforms is often known as social commerce. With Instagram social commerce, Facebook social commerce, TikTok social commerce or any other social commerce platforms, the entire shopping experience — from product discovery and research to the check out process — takes place right on a social media platform. 

According to eMarketer, the number of US social commerce buyers grew to over 80 million in 2020 and is anticipated to increase to 96.1 million in 2022. On the global scale, Accenture forecast social commerce statistics will reach $1.2 trillion by 2025, accounting for 16.7% of total eCommerce spend.

Why should e-merchants catch Social Commerce trends?

Social commerce cuts out all the obstacles to bring a seamless and friction-free shopping experience for customers. The purchase journey, for instance, is now being shortened as buyers are already logged in the app with their payment details ready to go.

The statistics from Statista reveal that by 2023, 71% of small businesses plan to sell on social media platforms. With more and more vendors embracing social commerce in innovative ways, it’s likely that its benefits are not limited to shoppers.

Social media platforms, without a doubt, are fertile land for brand equity to grow. As buyers share and repost products, brands stand a higher chance of expanding customer base. That’s the power of positive word-of-mouth!

Besides, social commerce also helps to improve customer interaction. Social commerce offers both parties a humane connection in a way that traditional eCommerce cannot. Through social networks, brands can instantly communicate with customers, address their issues and enhance customer service based on their feedback.

Social Commerce for eCommerce merchants

Understanding the potential and the benefits of social commerce, most brands, if not all, are racing to get as big a piece of this pie as possible. 

If brands haven’t integrated the eCommerce store with social platforms, it’s time to rethink that stance! In fact, eCommerce giants like Shopify, WooCommerce and BigCommerce all support social integration with Facebook Shop, Instagram Shopping and Pinterest Business. 

In August 2021, Shopify introduced a new-in app shopping experience on TikTok. Shopify merchants with a TikTok For Business account could add a shopping tab to TikTok profiles and sync product catalogs to create a mini-storefront that links directly to the online store for checkout.

And for brands pivoting to social media marketing, it would be a huge mistake to dismiss live streaming commerce. Indeed, live streaming as a method for product discovery is strongest  in the Chinese eCommerce market. Whilst, in the West, live commerce is mostly in the testing phase and forecast to be more widespread in the next year. Therefore, merchants will need to be prepared to be creative to stay ahead of the curve. And to maximize the power of live commerce, brands can consider inviting niche experts to join the live streamed videos and share their reviews.

What is Digital Payment?

Digital Payment is the process of transferring money between sellers and buyers via online payment methods or digital devices (mobile phone, Point-of-Sale system,…)

To put it differently, with digital payments, customers can purchase their product using digital wallets, credit/debit cards, crypto payment or other forms of eCommerce payments, instead of having cash or check involved.

In the scope of this report, LitExtension will closely observe the surge of two eCommerce checkout innovations: e-wallet and Buy Now Pay Later – the payment option that allows customers to pay for their purchase on a future date.

Digital Payments Statistics in 2021

Amidst the pandemic, consumers’ demand for contactless and frictionless digital payments is increasing. According to Statista, the total transaction value of digital payments is predicted to double in the next 4 years, from 5,425,300 in 2020 to 10,715,390 in 2025. According to Statista’s latest update, 2.14 billion – nearly 30% of the world’s population are digital buyers. 

eCommerce checkout innovations like e-wallet and Buy Now Pay Later continue to grow rapidly. As projected by FIS Global, the use of e-Wallet will account for 51.7% of the total eCommerce payment volumes by 2024. Currently, digital wallets are the leading online payment methods in several regions, including North America, Europe, and the Asia Pacific.

Meanwhile, Buy Now Pay Later is poised to double its market share in 2024, FIS Global reported.

On another note, the rise of crypto payments in 2021 is unignorable. According to McKinsey, although the penetration of crypto-currencies has reached a plateau, there is a noticeable number of customers who have been using crypto as payment.

What Are the Benefits of Digital Payments?

The growth of digital payments clearly indicates that e-merchants should embrace new technologies in eCommerce checkout. With a great variety of payment options, e-merchants will stand a higher chance of boosting their revenue.

By providing e-wallet and Buy Now Pay Later as payment options, giving the right marketing, e-merchants can attract a large volume of visitors coming to their online stores. Business operators can cash in on this traffic and convert these visitors to their customers.

On another note, accelerated and convenient digital payments also increase customers’ experience when shopping online. As a result, it can reduce cart abandonment and increase sales volume.

Besides, with the Buy Now Pay Later function enabled, customers can now shop without worrying about their current financial situation. This feature will prompt customers to purchase more and thus increase average order value.

Digital Payments and eCommerce Platforms

Understanding the importance of digital payments, several eCommerce platforms allow store owners to accept digital payments like e-wallet, Buy Now Pay Later and cryptocurrency as one of their eCommerce checkout options. 

Many hosted solutions have rolled out their own version of eCommerce payment gateway, namely Wix Payments and BigCommerce Payments.  These integrated payment platforms are now in partnership with financial behemoths like Klarna, Affirm, or Afterpay to provide Buy Now Pay Later as an installment solution. 

Outstandingly, Canadian eCommerce giant Shopify even teamed up with Affirm in July 2020 to roll out the Buy Now Pay Later on Shop Pay, an exclusive installment function for Shopify users.

On another note, following this eCommerce trend, Wix has joined hands with BitPay to offer crypto payment. As a result of this integration, Wix merchants can now accept crypto payments in 12 different digital coins.

Also, open-source solutions are packed with powerful plugins to provide eCommerce checkout functions to store owners. With the partnership of WooCommerce – VivaWallet, OpenCart – Stripe, and PrestaShop – Braintree, online shoppers can use digital wallets for fast checkout.

What Is eCommerce Sustainability?

eCommerce sustainability is the attempt of online store owners to turn their businesses into eco commerce. Sustainable eCommerce enables shopping green online by adopting green technology, selling sustainable products, or using eco friendly packaging.

eCommerce sustainability is not among the new eCommerce trends, yet its effect still echoes down the ages. Besides the impact it has on the environment, achieving eCommerce sustainability also contributes to the success of online stores, in many different ways. 

Several pieces of research have dedicated that more and more consumers are taking heed of the environment. According to Retail Dive, nearly 60% of customers are willing to purchase from sustainable eCommerce brands in the next two years. A considerable number of them agree with the idea of shopping green online to reduce the negative impact on the environment.

What Are the Benefits of eCommerce Sustainability?

With the steady increase in the number of environmentally-conscious consumers, eCommerce sustainability companies can avail this golden opportunity to attract more visitors. By adopting suitable tactics to boost conversions, these visitors might turn into loyal customers and significantly increase sales.

Furthermore, e-merchants can use eCommerce sustainability as a bellwether to enhance their brand image. Being a sustainable eCommerce company will make your store’s presence felt, thus store owners stand a higher chance of differentiating themselves from other competitors in the market.

Sustainability in eCommerce

When it comes to eCommerce sustainability, Shopify is renowned as a leading platform in protecting the environment. This hosted solution has rolled out Shopify’s Sustainability Fund along with several commitments to fight against climate change. 

In 2018, Shopify has successfully and entirely shifted their data servers to Google Cloud whose energy comes from 100% renewable resources. As a result, when operating a Shopify store, e-merchant is transforming their online business into a sustainable eCommerce. 

On the same wavelength with Shopify, Amazon introduced The Climate Pledge program in 2019. This is a determined attempt of this eCommerce behemoth to play its part in protecting the environment by deploying green technology. 

Amazon commits to diminish carbon emission on its delivery system. Therefore, when merchants sell on Amazon, they can take advantage of this decreased-carbon shipment.

Meanwhile, Etsy tackles environmental issues in a different approach. This marketplace provides its sellers with eco-friendly packaging made from 100% recycled materials or certified responsibly sourced paper. Besides, Etsy is making an effort to offset 100% carbon emissions from shipping and packaging on every delivery.

Omnichannel Definition

Omnichannel eCommerce is a multichannel approach that focuses on providing shoppers with a seamless experience on every channel or touch point. 

To put simply, with omnichannel eCommerce, customers can simultaneously use multiple channels in their shopping journey, starting their product search at one channel and making the purchase in another one. 

More importantly, omnichannel retailing implies the integration of inventory, customer service, and sales to offer a seamless transition and management between channels for store owners.

Omnichannel Statistics in 2021

Let’s look at some interesting figures to see why omnichannel eCommerce is becoming the new normal.

In 2021, people tend to buy online and pick up in-store (BOPIS). In a global survey, 74% of in-store shoppers who searched online before going to the store to shop. Also, buying online and returning in-store is another new normal in shopping behaviors. Shopify surveyed that 51% of consumers said the ability to check out online and return items to a brick-and-mortar store had a significant influence on their buying decision. Accordingly, 44% of brands said they planned on prioritizing this in 2022. 

With the surge of multi-channel shopping from consumers, retailers are embracing the trend by expanding their online presence to multiple channels to catch up with the demand. In the first quarter of 2021, U.S. retail eCommerce sales totaled more than $215 billion, up from $154 billion in the first quarter of 2020. Omnichannel retail is expected to exceed $491 billion in 2022 — a 15% increase from 2021, but omnichannel retail will feature personalization in 2022.

Omnichannel Retailing’s Benefits

An omnichannel strategy helps you expand brand’s reach to new customer segments. Each sales channel has a certain customer base, you can exploit its benefits to market products to target audiences.

Omnichannel marketing can boost conversion rate if segmentation and personalization are done correctly. With dynamic content based on customer-behavior, clickstream data, context, product recommendations, and exclusive personalized offers, digital retail brands can significantly increase their customer engagement.

Businesses can take advantage of omnichannel to increase brand awareness by presenting their products on various selling channels from online to physical store. With an omnichannel strategy, you can make a shopping journey as comfy as possible for customers. They don’t have to waste time looking for you. Your team or products are simply a click, an email, a direct message, or a phone call away, no matter where customers are. 

Omnichannel Strategy for eCommerce Sellers 

Here are some of the best practices that you can adopt to create an effective omnichannel strategy: 

• Segment target audience wisely across sales channels: Well-defined consumer segmentation is necessary for an efficient omnichannel marketing approach. The more segmented the plan is, the more effective it will be.
• Create different content for each sales channel: You’ll be able to target consumers in a variety of ways, including sending SMSs, emails, and push notifications. It is preferable to generate a personalized message for all channels.
• Retarget audiences: You shouldn’t remove a customer from your targeted customers’ list if they did not make a purchase in the first attempt. You can increase the chances of conversion by showing them relevant banner ads on different platforms, including social media marketing platforms.
• Make use of automation tools: Marketing automation tools are always a good choice to segment your audience properly. You can also integrate web stores with marketplaces to automate your workflow. Shopify, WooCommerce, and Magento offer plugins with multichannel selling features, while BigCommerce allows selling on marketplaces with its native features.

What is WooCommerce?

WooCommerce is a WordPress-based, open-source eCommerce solution. It is the go-to platform for businesses of all sizes and types since it’s free to download and install, and comes with the clout of the WordPress brand name.

Why WooCommerce is one of the best eCommerce platforms

Undoubtedly, WooCommerce is one of the top-of-mind choices when it comes to choosing an eCommerce platform. WooCommerce popularity stands to reason that it’s one of the best eCommerce platforms in the market. As previously mentioned, WooCommerce was the top 1 platform in terms of market share, ranked 2rd in spheres of live websites, and also the top 2 migrated-to platforms in 2021. 

In the top 10 biggest eCommerce platforms in 2021, WooCommerce is the only open source capturing a staggering share of the market. How? 

Despite requiring some coding skills, WooCommerce is one of the most easy-to-use platforms in the open-source world. Thanks to a WP-Admin dashboard, WooCommerce’s interface is very user-friendly. Especially, WooCommerce provides unparalleled compatibility, and flexibility for WordPress site owners.

As a matter of fact, being a WordPress plugin, WooCommerce enables users to take advantage of the full force of a super-rich WordPress themes and plugins store – 50,000+ free plugins, and 9000+ free themes for more specific. Besides, the “built-in” WordPress blog with a glut of outstanding blogging features fuels WooCommerce to be powerful in terms of blogging creation and management. 

• WooCommerce also comes along with robust built-in features, including WooCommerce Payment, WooCommerce Tax, WooCommerce Shipping… Apart from that, WooCommerce Multi-site and its integration with 20+ marketplaces arm users with the capability to build an effective multi-channel selling system. 
• Thanks to WordPress’s popularity, it’s easy to seek help from an active community of developers and experts if you run into a problem during setting up and running your online business on WooCommerce. 
• WooCommerce can facilitate your selling since this platform always updates with the latest trends, such as Social Commerce and digital payment as previously mentioned.
• On December 21, 2021, WooCommerce updated WooCommerce Blocks 6.6.0. This update corrects several bugs with the Block-based full-site editing templates, improves data sync between cart and draft orders, and improves the new checkout experience. 

“We moved to WooCommerce because it’s flexible and offers a much better service than [the platform] we initially used at launch. There are so many extensions available – it just makes sense.”

Wajdan Gul – Founder of SQUATWOLF

Here are some of the marketplaces that aren’t featured in the top list but we think they could also be excellent places to consider selling on. Scroll down to discover more emerging marketplaces and some of the most notable features.

Wish

Wish is a multinational marketplace that mainly sells products with incredibly cheap prices mostly from Chinese sellers. 

The best thing is that merchants can find so-called expensive items in large numbers with low price tags. When it comes to mobile commerce, Wish is among one of the best choices. In 2020, Wish has reached a total of $2.5 billion in revenue, also this e-marketplace is the most downloaded shopping app in the USA in 2017.

Wish selling features

Importing or bulk editing listings with Wish is quite simple, the e-marketplace lets merchants make use of a CSV file to fill in product name, description, tags, and unique product ID. This way, there’s no need to manually upload one-by-one if it’s multiple products. Making use of Wish’s inventory management to keep track of all the available items, merchants can filter for the specific inventory, based on product status and inventory status as well.

Wish expect all buyers will ship within 5 days. It also offers 2 days shipping for buyers. It also provides FBW (Fulfillment by Wish) this means that the items are stored in warehouses and when the customer places an order, it is sent to them automatically by Wish. 

The best thing about Wish is the inexpensive fee structure. Wish will pay the selling price of each product to the seller, minus a commission. The sales commission rate depends on the item but can be up to 15% in combination with the order and shipping rate. More than that, there’s no need to pay a registration fee, no fees for product listing, and no monthly or annual subscription fee as well.

Google Shopping

Google Shopping has always been a suitable choice for any business. It’s a collection of diverse services and destinations, all driven by Google Merchant Center.

After Amazon, Google Shopping is the second most popular place for users to start their product searches. This makes it a likely route to precisely know about the product description, price, review, images and compare products.

Google Shopping selling features

With Google Shopping, sellers can take advantage of 3 typical services:

• Surface across Google Shopping app. When a consumer searches on Google for a related keyword, the product listings will be organically displayed on the search results without any paid marketing.
• Google Shopping Ads give merchants maximum flexibility with the budget as it doesn’t have a fixed limit for bids and daily budgets. Sellers can launch a campaign with as low as $0.01 for a click. Therefore, optimizing the Google Shopping listing will help to get the most out of Ad campaigns.
• Google Shopping Action: In 2020, Google announced that the seller that takes part in the “Buy on Google” checkout experience will no longer have to pay commission on transactions. Therefore, online stores have chances to sell on Google, no matter their budget and business size.

As an online seller, nobody wants just any old traffic, it should be the traffic that results in sales. With over 3.5 billion searches per day, sellers can’t afford to miss out on a Google Shopping opportunity!

Facebook Shops

Many merchants choose Facebook as their main priority, that’s why sellers should definitely consider Facebook Shops. The platform lets businesses easily sell their products on Facebook and Instagram. Sellers can set up custom online stores without coding, promote items through Stories, and connect with customers. Even though it’s not so popular, it’s still an emerging marketplace. According to Statista, Facebook Shops reported an average of one million monthly global users and around 250 million active stores worldwide.

Facebook Shops Selling features

Facebook Shops allows users to add and manage products in a catalog using Catalog Manager, Facebook’s inventory platform. Merchants can easily add products one by one in the Shop tab of the Business Page. Also, make use of collections to feature specific products in the Facebook Page shop and arrange merchandise by category so customers can find specific items more easily. Sellers can find all the relevant info about the items they want to advertise or sell across Facebook and Instagram at the FB Commerce Manager.

Most merchants choose Facebook Shops to sell products so they can find a better way to run Ads on both Facebook and Instagram. With Facebook Shops, There are more than 10 types of ADs to choose from. From promoting the page AD to boosting post AD, branding AD, and much more. 

Additionally, Facebook Shops also brings amazing features for shipping and fulfillment. In Commerce Manager, merchants can create and buy a USPS shipping label to print and attach to available orders. Also, set up and bulk edit the shipping info using the shipping profiles to specify the order handling time, shipping speed, shipping price, and shipping destination for all items.