Brief Intro to Social Commerce & Tips to Start Your Business

A Brief Introduction to Social Commerce & Tips to Start Your Business!

All of you must be aware of eCommerce, but most of you must not have been aware of social commerce, which is a new buzz in the town. It is a new way of selling your products to millions of customers. This feature is emerging throughout several platforms and creating new opportunities for all the small and big brands to sell their products effectively. This brand-new selling method has been increased deliberately during the COVID-19 pandemic because brick-and-mortar stores were not working.

The pandemic situation is the primary reason behind the emergence of this trend. It has drastically changed the digital selling concept and introduced social media platforms as a new marketplace for customers to shop for their products. Facebook, Instagram, and several other social media platforms have been used acutely to sell several diversified products. This blog explicitly mentions what it is and the aspects you should consider while selling your products through social media. Let’s deep dive and find out what it is and how it can benefit you as a seller.

What is Social Commerce?

It is the new way of selling and buying products directly through social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, etc. This method allows customers to shop while scrolling through their favorite social media platforms. As we know, in this digital age, customers from various generations are using social media platforms. Hence it is one of the most innovative ways to sell your products through social media by associating with this new business method. This specific business model has pushed social media beyond its actual role. According to a survey, this method is also helpful for various brands and individual sellers. Within the next two years, it has been predicted that this business model will grow faster than ever.

Startling Social Commerce Platform to Start Your Journey with

Regarding this selling process, it is essential to know about platforms that allow you to sell your products. Here, we have mentioned a few popular social media platforms where you can sell your products and fulfill the requirements of a number of customers.

Facebook

Undoubtedly, Facebook is the most recognizable social media platform worldwide. If we talk about the statistics from India, Facebook currently has 329.65 million active users. This platform has a tool with a shallow barrier for sellers to enter. You can set up a Facebook business profile to sell your products through this platform. At Facebook, you can automatically synchronize your entire inventory list with this platform in just a few seconds.

In case your eCommerce solution doesn’t provide Facebook integration, then, in that case, you can even upload your product information through a spreadsheet also. Selling your products through this specific business model also encourages organic product discovery and ultimately helps you increase your overall revenue. Once Facebook users find your products on this platform, they can even complete a purchase through the Facebook app itself. This platform is the most recommendable way to connect with your customers directly through messenger.

Instagram

As you know, Facebook is the parent company of Instagram, so Instagram shopping is directly linked with the Facebook shop. To set up your shop, you must link your Instagram business account to your Facebook business account. Once you get it done, you will be able to upload your existing product catalog on this platform, or you may create a new one also.

Instagram is all about #hashtags, and to sell your products successfully through this social media platform, and you need to add various relatable tags to your content. It can make your product discoverable for your customers. Apart from that, Instagram posting, creative reels, and videos will help you immensely in selling your products. This platform offers more opportunities for creative selling promotion because of its visual feature.

Pinterest

Pinterest is another social media platform that allows you to sell your products directly to your customers. However, like any other social media platform through Pinterest, you won’t be able to provide the complete shopping experience to your customers on this platform only. Product pins are not direct tools at Pinterest, so customers will redirect to your main eCommerce landing page to complete their purchase. To sell your products through this social platform, you need to add your product catalog to the Pinterest business page. According to a recent survey, more than 80 percent of Pinterest users are actively searching for some purchase inspiration. However, setting up your product page on this platform requires a little technical knowledge to pinpoint your products for your customers.

Three Key Benefits of This Specific Business Method

Connect with a Wider Customer Base

Acquiring brand loyalty is vital for any online business, as many are on the battleground. Ever since the pandemic has hit the world, a drastic change has been seen in customers’ shopping behavior. They have switched their brand preferences and are open to trying out new products and brands. In this continuation, you must be aware of the fact that more than fifty percent of customers are getting to know a new product or a brand through social media. Hence, it is highly recommended to start selling your products through S-commerce. Through these social media channels, you will be able to connect with a more substantial customer base because those who know about online shopping must have a social media presence. We have already given you several Facebook users in the above paragraphs that can help you to understand the value of social media platforms and their worth.

Escalate Reviews & Recommendations

If you are new to this selling zone, you need to know that social media profiles are the perfect place to establish your social proof. While online shopping, customers can not try out or test your products; reviews and feedback are the only factors they can rely on. Social media posts can attract thousands of customers into your funnel, giving them a chance to pen down their overall shopping experience with you. Believe it or not but one positive review can do wonders for your online business; it can increase your sales and add more customers to your journey. Humans have this in-built nature of passing recommendations to each other. Thus, it can eventually help you to get more customers.

Showcase Customers’ Shopping Behavior

This particular selling method provides you direct access to your customer’s social media profiles, and you can go through them to learn more about them. This practice can let you know your customer’s basic preferences and choices. Using these insights, you can offer them products as per their choice and increase your sales effortlessly. This method provides you the ability to impact your target customers on a larger scale.

Conclusion

Thus, you must have gained a broad idea about this alluring shopping method. But you must keep a few things in mind before you start selling your products through social media platforms; you need to know your target customers. Once you get to know them, start scheduling your promotional posts to catch their eyes. Last but not least, must reply to every review and query promptly. It provides a personalized shopping experience to customers and increases the chances of customer retention also. Social media has brought a revolution for online shopping and made it easier for sellers and customers to interact with each other. So what are you waiting for? It is time to adapt to this new business method.

How Does Meesho and Other eCommerce Reselling Apps Work in India!

How Does Meesho and Other eCommerce Reselling Apps Work in India!

During the COVID-19 pandemic, life put us all on lockdown. According to research, more than 65% of customers still do not prefer to visit a brick-mortar store. This was when sellers and brands planned to sell online, and they adapted the eCommerce platforms and apps as their ammunition. During this period, India’s eCommerce business tendency is snowballing. Business minders come up with the idea of reselling the products, and this is easy to start and doesn’t even require a lot of money to invest.

Nowadays, resale has become a full-fledged business that can let you generate more revenue than a paycheck. You must wonder what exactly reselling is and how reselling apps work. In this blog, you will find how this eCommerce business model works, what reselling is, and how Meesho and other reselling apps work. Let’s go in and dig out all the required information about reselling and reselling apps.

Definition of Reseller and Reselling Apps

First of all, let’s focus on the reseller; well, a reseller is someone who purchases products in bulk from a manufacturer, wholesaler, or retailer and then sells those products to their own customers on a high-profit margin. Additionally, you have the opportunity to share the product catalog through Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, and social media with your customers. This form of business is also known as social commerce. There is a slight difference between seller and reseller, seller can not resell their products via any other medium other than an eCommerce platform.

This business model is quite popular in India because it doesn’t require a hefty investment. With the thriving popularity of reselling, reselling apps such as Meesho have entered the market to modify this business model. This social commerce platform has grown tremendously over the past few years. Reselling apps allow you to make the payment only after a customer confirms an order, in case you are buying reselling products from the social commerce platform or app only.

How Does Messho Work as a Social Commerce Platform?

Undoubtedly, no such introduction is required for the social commerce platform or reselling app Meesho. This platform has changed the entire picture of reselling. It has to provide unexpected exposure to the resellers and make it easier for them to sell their products and attain decent revenue. Payment transactions with Meesho are safe and speedy. It offers very low-cost refunds and delivery options as well. This reselling app has emerged as a trusted brand by more than 3 million resellers across India. The recent advertisement of Meeshos’ says “Chote Paise Badi Shopping,” which perfectly describes the app’s service to its customers.

It has provided tremendous opportunities for small businesses to come aboard and sell their products promptly. Without the requirement of heavy investment, you can start your own business today with Meesho. The tagline of this reselling app is “Not just a homemaker, but as a Meesho Entrepreneur.” Numerous homemakers have now connected with this app and run their businesses successfully.

What is the Operating Process of Meesho?

As you already know, Meesho is essentially social commerce and operates on a D2C (Direct-to-customer) eCommerce business model. As a reseller, you have the advantage of promoting your available products on your social media platforms, WhatsApp, etc. expanding the scope of selling your products. Products will be offered by a third-party manufacturer who is associated with Meesho. You can say that reselling with Meesho is an uncomplicated and compelling way to work from home and generate revenue.

Meesho charges a cost of commission of between 15%-20% on all items sold by the reseller. However, it charges significant penalties on product returns. This app has more than 700 employees and is focused on a market of over 15 million resellers. This social commerce brand claims to have a presence in over 800 locations.

To sell your products successfully with n on Meesho, you can take the help of eVanik OWS as a marketplace reconciliation software. It can help you analyze your rivals’ pricing strategy and let you grow immensely.

What are the Products you can Sell on Meesho?

Meesho has a diversified range of product categories. All products are inspected to check for quality purposes, and Meesho ensures that they are shipped responsibly. You may find resale items from Meesho as well. It facilitates you to sell a distinctive product range and expand your customer base. Following are Messho’s product categories from which you can select and sell.

  • Kitchenware products
  • Women’s Clothing
  • Men’s Clothing
  • Kids Clothing
  • Household Products
  • Home furnishing products
  • Beauty products

    Customers prefer to shop from this platform because all the products available are budget-friendly. This social commerce app’s future plan is to have approximately 100 million active customers and add more than 50 million products in its categories by the end of 2022.

Challenges you can Face While Selling on Meesho

Well, Resellers, advantages come with challenges. Thus, this app also has several business challenges you may experience while selling products on this platform. Let’s have a quick sneak peek into Meesho’s business challenges.

  • High Distribution Cost

The initial stage of Meesho began with the ethnic fashion category, targeting homemakers and women who were running their boutiques and reselling their products through social media applications. During the pandemic, the distribution costs have significantly impacted the financial aspect of this platform. Because customers prefer to buy face masks, sanitizers, personal care products, and groceries online. They have fewer opportunities to go out and attend any function. Thus the requirement for ethnic clothes and beauty products gets reduced. However, this app has now started to offer personal care products along with other above-mentioned product categories.

  • Poor Product Quality

Most customers reported that the product they purchased from Meesho was of poor quality. It can be the reason that this app has still not made its way to reach out to urban customers. Indeed this app is famous in small cities but has to sell quality-based products to reach urban customers. As a reseller, if you buy products directly from Meesho there are chances you may end up selling poor-quality products to your customers.

  • Delay Delivery/Critical Customer Support

Another business challenge you can face on this app is the delay in delivery and poor customer support. Numerous customers have reported that their order gets delayed frequently. When orders get delayed, customers try to reach out to the support team to seek information about the status of their order. But unfortunately, in so many cases, Meeshos’ customer support team fails the customer. Only can only imagine the level of dissatisfaction experienced by such customers.

Thus, if you want to sell through the Meesho app, you may occasionally have to face such challenges. On the other hand, you can still upsurge your revenue by enhancing the listing quality of your products on Meesho.

Other Reselling Apps in India

  • Shop 101

This reselling app represents itself as the number one reselling app in India. It has diversified product categories from clothing to home decor, kitchen, beauty, electronics, etc. They have approximately 50 lakh four-star rated resellers.

  • OLX

You must be aware of this app; it is pretty old in the social commerce business model. This user-friendly reselling app works exactly as an advertisement does in a newspaper. One can resale and buy furniture, household items, cars, electronic appliances, etc., from OLX. It provides a unique chat box function that helps you connect with customers directly.

  • eBay

eBay is another most popular app in India and worldwide. You can buy and sell products through eBay from any location in the world. You can sell almost everything on this platform, such as clothing, vehicles, cosmetics, jewelry, and electronics. This app has over ten thousand downloads on Google play.

Conclusion

The vast eCommerce market has diversified opportunities for you to start your own business. It can make you self-reliant and increase your confidence to live the life you want. Reselling business model is getting adopted by thousands of people every day. You can also grab this opportunity and start selling through above mentioned social commerce platforms. However, whether it is a small or a big business everyone should have a track of their finances. In this regard, you can take the help of the payment reconciliation service of eVanik OWS. It can help you with hassle-free payment proceedings and keep a record of your every transaction.

How to Register your Business on Shopsy & Make Most of It!

How to Register your Business on Shopsy & Make Most of It!

The increasing number of eCommerce platforms is not going to stop there only. With every passing year, there comes a new member in the race. This growing industry presents new agile competitors whenever sellers want to settle down and sell their products peacefully. Nowadays, Shopsy is the new baby of this industry. Some of you may have heard of it, and some of you may not. Well, we always want to keep you aware of your competitors, so we are here with our new blog. In this particular blog, we have tried to cover all the information that you may need to know about.

Being in eCommerce, you need to know the potential of selling on every new channel. This eComm venture is the trending talk of the town. It is pretty famous on all the social media platforms because Shopsy is a form of a social commerce platform. If social media channels are popular in India, then this S-comm venture will indeed be known soon. This particular blog contains a lot about this new eCommerce endeavor. You will get to know what Shopsy is, and we have also mentioned the registration process on this platform. Apart from that, you will get to know about S-commerce or social commerce. Let's get in and dig out all the vital information about it.

What is Social Commerce?

Before knowing about Shopsy, you need to understand what social commerce is. Well, this new form of eCommerce industry has more than 65.3 billion markets right now, and it is predicted to grow to 89.16 billion by next year. This is only the Indian figure; globally, it is pretty high. Social commerce is the practical process of selling your products directly on various social media platforms. In this form of eComm, everything takes place right on a particular social media platform, from product discovery and research to the check-out process. In the current scenario, Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest allow social commerce. While scrolling down their social media accounts, customers can find some ads for shop now or buy now through the app. They can simply buy the product and carry on surfing if they want. It is a new strategy to attract shoppers and generate sales effectively.

What is Shopsy?

Now, if we talk about Shopsy, it is a brand new social commerce launched by Flipkart in July 2021. This one-year-old venture has gotten a kick a few months back and is not trending everywhere. It's a free-selling social commerce platform for sellers to sell their products online across India. As a seller, you can list your products on Shopsy and reach out to almost 100-500 million budget-friendly customers. This brand new platform has established a vast distribution network between sellers and resellers. This platform provides an opportunity to sell your products to those customers who are not informed much about e-shopping through resellers. Lets' see as a seller how you can sell your products on Shopsy.

The Registration Process on Shopsy

To sell your products through this platform, you must register as a Shopsy seller. You can complete the registration in a few essential steps.

  • Sign up on this platform via your mobile number and email id.
  • Now via Pincode check if it is serviceable in your area or not.
  • Upload your GSTIN number.
  • Provide your sample signatures and a copy of the canceled cheque with the printed business name.
  • Now you are ready to list your products on this platform.
  • You are good at selling your products without any hurdles.

Why Sellers Are Choosing This Platform to Sell Their Products

There is a positive buzz about this social commerce platform in the market, and sellers are moving toward this platform because there is a low commission and a high-profit margin. In a few following steps, you will know why sellers are choosing Shopsy to sell their products online.

  • This platform is way more convenient for sellers to sell their products promptly.
  • There are no hidden fees, less paperwork, and no extra costs that a seller has to pay to sell their products.
  • Zero percent commission for products under 0-500gms.
  • No professional photoshoot is required for sellers. You can click the product image through your phone and upload it.
  • Hassle-free pick-up and delivery of products through more than 200 pick-up hubs associated with ten thousand delivery agents.No trademarks are needed to sell your
  • products on Shopsy.
  • You can get complete access to the latest market trends.
  • This platform provides you the Selection and pricing insights you can use to understand better growing your business.

Online Seller Guide For Shopsy Sellers

As a Shopsy seller, you can expand your online business while acquiring multiple benefits. By following the several easy steps, you can reach approximately 500 million customers in India. Here is an online seller guide to selling your products efficiently and generating immense revenue.

Add an Attractive Picture of Your Product

Images play a crucial role in selling your products on any eCommerce website. However, you don't need to meet any image guidelines on this platform. Shopsy offers a seamless process of adding images by excluding any image guidelines. You can simply put your products on the tabletop and click the images with the help of your mobile phone. What matters the most is the clarity and the angles.

Add Informative Description

To attract your potential customers, you need to add an informative product description. You need to highlight the unique features of listed products on Shopsy. It should be to the point and easy to understand for customers. Descriptions provide a better understanding of the products and affect the shopping decision of the customers.

Maximum Product Listings Lead to Higher Sales

As a Shopsy seller, you can utilize tolerant brand and image guidelines. Unlike any other eCommerce website, product listing is relatively easy on Shopsy. The more products you will list, the higher sales you can receive. It is because with the diversified range of products you will be able to meet the demands of a customer.

Apart from this, you must keep an eye on your competitors and manage your inventory like a pro. Managing your inventory can become easier with the help of inventory management software such as eVanik OWS. This automated feature can provide you with stock-in and stock-out information. It is essential to prevent out-of-stock situations.

Conclusion

This is all about Shopsy you must know to start selling products on this platform. It is an outstanding platform for those who want to spend less and earn more. This platform provides you so many benefits that are cost-effective and easy to run your business. However, once you are done with the registration process and start selling your products, you must keep a few things in mind. One of them is inventory management; you should not miss out on this point as a seller. Poor inventory management can lead to business failure. So it is better to handle it via any automatic software. It will save time and money and provide immense opportunities to maximize your sales on Shopsy.