Marketing
9 mins read

Clicks, Conversations, and Commerce: Why Social E-commerce Is Surging

Featuring Rajendra Srivastava
Social e-commerce blends community and transactions. What lessons can traditional players learn to stay competitive?
Clicks, Conversations, And Commerce Why Social E Commerce Is Surging
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Rajendra Srivastava
Novartis Professor of Marketing Strategy and Innovation. He was also the former Dean of ISB. His research spans marketing strategy, marketing metrics, and brand and customer management, with a current focus on business model innovation. Currently, he serves as the Executive Director at ISB’s Centre for Business Innovation (CBI) and the Executive Fellow Programme in Management (EFPM).
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Giants like Amazon and Alibaba have long enjoyed dominance in e-commerce. Now, a new force is disrupting the online space: social e-commerce. Its reimagined business model allows buyers to engage with sellers, make purchases and checkout directly at the convenience of a single social media platform. Projected to grow from $492 billion in 2021 to $1.2 trillion by 2025, it is expanding at three times the pace of traditional e-commerce.

 

In our paper, co-researchers Ashish Sinha, Prakash Bagri, Kiran Pedada and I explore the reason behind the rapid rise of social e-commerce and what it means for the future of online shopping.  In a landscape where social e-commerce platforms like PinDuoDuo (PDD), SEA Ltd., and Shopify are gaining ground internationally by reimagining how businesses engage with customers, incumbent companies which miss adapting to this trend risk becoming obsolete.

 

What sets social e-commerce apart?  

Essentially, social e-commerce brings the functionality of e-commerce directly into the experience of social media, allowing customers the convenience of shopping directly from the feeds of their favourite social platform. It differs from social media marketing, where the goal is to drive referral traffic from a social media site to a website or an online store.