Businesses Leaning on Social Commerce for One-Stop-Shop Platform, Says Portland SEO's Beato

Augusto Beato, CEO of Portland SEO, believes that social media platforms will soon figure out how to boost direct sales and relegate e-commerce sites to the sidelines. "Businesses want to become a one-stop-shop, and targeting audiences are hard on third-party e-commerce sites," said Beato. "This is why they would want to close sales as soon as customers learn about their products and services through social media."

Online merchants seeking to boost sales may reach out to Portland SEO for assistance through this link.

In a survey conducted by Israel-based Magisto of over 750 decision makers in the US throughout May 2018, 48 percent of marketers said that they would use social media for all of their business and marketing transactions if social media platforms offered direct sales. They effectively would be more likely to use social media for all of their business and marketing transactions.

Social media plays a vital role early on the sales funnel, as a research tool and influencer, but to date, most consumers are still not buying directly via social platforms. In fact, a recent study shows that less than one-half of Facebook users have ever bought a product after clicking on a post or a link in a post.

Twitter tried a buy button to drive sales through its platform, and it then gradually phased it out after it failed to hook consumers. Instagram also launched a shoppable text in posts, and Facebook introduced Facebook Shop and Facebook Marketplace.

Over 550 million people use Facebook's Marketplace, enabling seamless transactions on the platform.

One of the main roadblocks is in regards to payments. Traditionally, to make a payment via an ad or link on a social media site, consumers had to enter another portal and add their payment details, which breaks the flow of a casual browsing session and also raises security issues from using third-party sites.

Nonetheless, sales through social media is rising. Only 26 percent of respondents say they use third-party e-commerce platforms to market their business, compared to 71 percent who use social media.

Around out of four or 72 percent of marketers say they would be more likely to use third-party e-commerce sites if they offered more tools to actively market or promote their business, or if they could natively create, upload, and edit content on the platform.

Beato says the question is how soon marketers can quantify the revenue from social.