Social Commerce Trends and Forecast
The future of the global social commerce market looks promising with opportunities in the business to consumer, business to business, and consumer to consumer markets. The global social commerce market is expected to reach an estimated $4172.8 billion by 2030 with a CAGR of 28.7% from 2024 to 2030. The major drivers for this market are n increase in the use of social media, growth and attraction of online shopping, amount of time spent on these sites on average during the pandemic, and the convenience of online shopping.
• Lucintel forecasts that, within the product type category, apparels will remain the largest segment over the forecast period because most individuals spent their time online during the covid-19 pandemic, fashion businesses found new ways to foster the buying experience, work with influencers and artists, and establish new connections.
• In terms of regions, APAC is expected to witness highest growth over the forecast period due to growing investments in the infrastructure supporting telecommunications, the increasing use of smartphones, and the popularity of social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.
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Emerging Trends in the Social Commerce Market
The future direction of social commerce is being influenced by a number of key trends. These trends reflect advancements in technology, changes in consumer behavior, and innovations in platform features. For businesses aiming to tap into the intersection between e-commerce and social media’s growth, understanding these trends is crucial.
• Live Shopping: Influencers or brands hosting live-streamed sales events are becoming more common. This allows real-time interaction with viewers, where they can showcase products and answer questions. Combining entertainment with direct shopping opportunities generates urgency and excitement while driving high engagement and conversion rates.
• Social Media Integration: One significant trend is the seamless integration of shopping features within social media platforms. For example, Instagram and Facebook have developed in-app purchasing, enabling users to shop directly from posts and stories. This makes the conversion process easier for users, allowing them to buy what they want without leaving the app itself.
• Influencer Partnerships: Increasingly important for many companies are collaborations with influencers. Using sponsored posts, reviews, live streams, etc., influencers leverage their reach and credibility to promote products on behalf of brands. Authenticity and relatability increase customer loyalty through higher engagement levels and sales conversions, leading to trust between fans and brands.
• Personalized Shopping Experiences: The increasing use of data and AI to create personalized shopping experiences is another major trend. Platforms are using algorithms to suggest products based on behavior, preferences, and interactions. Personalized recommendations improve the user experience and raise the chance of conversion by presenting relevant products to potential buyers.
• Social Commerce Analytics: Advanced analytics tools have become a necessity for measuring the success of social commerce efforts. Companies are investing in analytics to track performance indicators like engagement rates, conversion rates, and return on investment (ROI). These insights help optimize social commerce strategies, refine targeting, and enhance overall campaign effectiveness.
Emerging trends such as live shopping, social media integration into e-commerce, influencer partnerships, personalized selling, and advanced analytics are changing the landscape of social commerce. By adopting these trends, users will have a better experience while purchasing goods in social commerce, as these trends simplify the process and provide valuable insights to improve strategies, thus fostering growth within this sector.
Recent Developments in the Social Commerce Market
Recent developments in social commerce demonstrate significant progress in technology, as well as marketing strategies used by companies. These changes have transformed brands’ consumer engagements through social media platforms, driving sales. Key developments showcase new feature integrations, innovative marketing approaches, and changing consumer behaviors.
• Advanced Shopping Features: Examples include shoppable posts and integrated checkout options. These features allow users to buy things directly from the app, reducing friction between the discovery and purchase stages and compressing the shopping experience itself. Consequently, this development enhances convenience and raises conversion rates.
• Growth of Live Shopping: Brands and influencers are increasingly hosting live-streamed sales sessions, known as live shopping events. The interactive format permits real-time product demonstrations and direct interaction with viewers. This means that live shopping events are effective at driving sales and building brand loyalty.
• Expansion of Social Media Platforms: E-commerce capabilities are being extended by major social media platforms, which integrate their existing services with other web stores. These platforms continue to improve their shopping functions and features to make it easier for brands to reach more people and utilize social media as a primary sales channel.
• Influencer Marketing Evolution: Influencer marketing is evolving towards long-term partnerships and authentic content. For example, brands collaborate with influencers to create content that engages the target audience. This process helps create trust and loyalty, leading to more effective social commerce campaigns and stronger brand relationships.
• Local and Niche Market Focus: Social commerce has shifted attention towards local and niche markets. By creating personalized promotional activities, brands can target specific groups of consumers. This approach helps serve clients based on their preferences, resulting in stronger bonds with the brand through higher engagement and increased sales.
Recent developments in social commerce—advanced shopping features, the rise of live shopping, expanded platform capabilities, and shifts in influencer marketing towards local markets—are substantial drivers reshaping this space. These advancements improve customer experience, foster better marketing strategies, and contribute to the growth of social commerce companies.
Strategic Growth Opportunities for Social Commerce Market
Across various applications, numerous opportunities for growth in social commerce exist due to technological advancements and changing consumer behavior. These opportunities can help businesses improve their marketing strategies, engage with customers, and increase sales through social media platforms.
• E-Commerce Integration: Integrating e-commerce functionalities directly into social media platforms presents a great growth opportunity. This integration allows seamless shopping without exiting the app, improving convenience and increasing conversion rates. Therefore, businesses should optimize their social media profiles for direct sales and develop effective in-app purchasing techniques.
• Influencer-Driven Campaigns: Collaborating with influencers in social commerce campaigns offers high growth potential. Influencers can increase brand awareness, produce authentic content, and communicate with their followers about the products. Through these partnerships, brands target specific audiences and build trust, which leads to increased sales and loyalty.
• Localized Content and Offers: Developing localized content and offers specifically targeting distinct regions or demographics can improve engagement and drive sales. Social commerce platforms provide channels through which companies can deliver relevant promotions to their targeted market, making marketing processes more effective while considering different consumer preferences.
• Social Commerce Analytics: By investing in social commerce analytics tools, businesses gain valuable insights into how their campaigns are performing and can track consumer behavior. Sophisticated analytics are key to monitoring significant metrics like engagement rates and conversion rates, enabling businesses to make data-driven decisions to optimize ROI through better social commerce strategies.
• User-Generated Content: Encouraging and utilizing user-generated content (UGC) is a strong opportunity for growth. UGC, such as customer reviews or testimonials, along with photos posted by customers, can enhance credibility while driving engagement. By leveraging UGC in social commerce efforts, brands can foster better connectivity with their audience.
Strategic growth opportunities in e-commerce integration, influencer campaigns, localized content, advanced analytics, and user-generated content will help improve the presence of businesses on social media platforms. This focus will lead to higher sales, impacting the overall success of social commerce businesses.
Social Commerce Market Driver and Challenges
A range of technological, economic, and regulatory factors impact social commerce. Technological advancements, increasing consumer engagement, and the integration of e-commerce with social media are major drivers. Data privacy concerns, platform dependency, and market competition are the challenges faced. It is important to understand these drivers and challenges to navigate the dynamic terrain of social commerce.
The factors responsible for driving the social commerce market include:
• Technological Advancements: Technological advancements, such as enhanced platform features and AI-driven analytics, drive social commerce. User experience is improved by innovations such as shopping integrations, live streaming, and personalized recommendations. These changes enable businesses to offer seamless, interactive shopping experiences that lead to increased sales and customer satisfaction.
• Increasing Consumer Engagement: Growing consumer engagement with social media platforms drives social commerce. Users are spending more time on social media, where they explore products and make direct purchases. Increased involvement creates more opportunities for businesses to reach consumers and take advantage of trends in social commerce.
• E-Commerce Integration: The integration of e-commerce functionalities within various social media platforms is a key driver. Features like shoppable posts, in-app checkout, and seamless purchasing options streamline the buying process and boost convenience. This integration drives growth in social commerce by increasing conversion rates.
Challenges in the social commerce market include:
• Data Privacy Concerns: Data privacy concerns pose a significant obstacle to social commerce. When companies use consumer information for targeted marketing and personalized suggestions, issues related to data safety and confidentiality arise. To safeguard customer trust and avoid legal liabilities, strict adherence to data protection regulations is necessary.
• Platform Dependency: Businesses face the challenge of depending on social media platforms for sales. Changes in platform algorithms, policies, or user behavior may result in reduced visibility and performance. Companies must adapt to these changes and diversify their strategies to minimize risks associated with reliance on a single platform.
• Market Competition: The social commerce market is highly competitive. To stand out among many brands using social media channels, businesses must adopt innovative tactics and create irresistible content. Continuous differentiation and optimization of social commerce activities are essential for maintaining competitiveness.
Major forces driving social commerce include advancements in technology, increasing consumer engagement, and the integration of e-commerce into social media platforms. However, these strategies are challenged by data privacy concerns, platform dependency, and market competition, which can affect growth. Success in social commerce requires leveraging opportunities and addressing these challenges effectively.
List of Social Commerce Companies
Companies in the market compete on the basis of product quality offered. Major players in this market focus on expanding their manufacturing facilities, R&D investments, infrastructural development, and leverage integration opportunities across the value chain. With these strategies social commerce companies cater increasing demand, ensure competitive effectiveness, develop innovative products & technologies, reduce production costs, and expand their customer base. Some of the social commerce companies profiled in this report include-
• Etsy
• Fashnear Technologies
• Meta Platforms
• Pinduoduo
• Pinterest
• TikTok
• Poshmark
Social Commerce by Segment
The study includes a forecast for the global social commerce by business model, product type, sales channel, and region.
Social Commerce Market by Business Model [Analysis by Value from 2018 to 2030]:
• Business to Consumer
• Business to Business
• Consumer to Consumer
Social Commerce Market by Product Type [Analysis by Value from 2018 to 2030]:
• Personal & Beauty Care
• Apparels
• Accessories
• Home Products
• Health Supplements
• Food & Beverage
• Others
Social Commerce Market by Sales Channel [Analysis by Value from 2018 to 2030]:
• Video Commerce (Live Stream + Prerecorded)
• Social Network-Led Commerce
• Social Reselling
• Group Buying
• Product Review Platforms
Social Commerce Market by Region [Analysis by Value from 2018 to 2030]:
• North America
• Europe
• Asia Pacific
• The Rest of the World
Country Wise Outlook for the Social Commerce Market
Social commerce is rapidly transforming the digital shopping landscape as brands and consumers increasingly engage and transact via social media. This merging of social interaction with online shopping is changing the face of e-commerce. Recent developments in the United States, China, Germany, India, and Japan demonstrate different strides in platform features, user engagement, and market strategies shaping social commerce.
• U.S.: Shopping features on platforms like Instagram and Facebook have seen notable expansion in social commerce. These include improved shoppable posts, integrated checkout experiences, and influencer partnerships. Brands are using these tools to enable sales directly from their clients’ preferred sites, creating an uninterrupted shopping experience with personalized content and targeted ads to increase consumer attention.
• China: China leads social commerce innovation with platforms like WeChat and Douyin (TikTok) integrating advanced e-commerce features. Innovations include live-streaming commerce, where influencers and brands host live shopping events, as well as in-app purchases. This results in high engagement rates and conversion, making social commerce China’s dominant retail channel.
• Germany: In Germany, companies are embracing social media to sell to consumers via platforms like Facebook and Instagram. Key developments include shoppable ads and partnerships with local influencers. German retailers need to create interactive customer experiences online that cater to consumer preferences and drive e-commerce sales.
• India: India has seen rapid growth in social commerce through platforms like WhatsApp and Instagram. Recent developments include expanding in-app purchasing capabilities and partnering with local influencers. By offering localized content and promotions, brands are improving accessibility and increasing customer engagement.
• Japan: Japan has joined the social commerce trend with networks like LINE and Instagram, offering convenient features such as direct purchase options and influencer partnerships. Japanese brands focus on creating immersive shopping experiences, enhancing brand loyalty, and boosting sales.
Features of the Global Social Commerce Market
Market Size Estimates: Social commerce market size estimation in terms of value ($B).
Trend and Forecast Analysis: Market trends (2018 to 2023) and forecast (2024 to 2030) by various segments and regions.
Segmentation Analysis: Social commerce market size by business model, product type, sales channel, and region in terms of value ($B).
Regional Analysis: Social commerce market breakdown by North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, and Rest of the World.
Growth Opportunities: Analysis of growth opportunities in different business model, product type, sales channel, and regions for the social commerce market.
Strategic Analysis: This includes M&A, new product development, and competitive landscape of the social commerce market.
Analysis of competitive intensity of the industry based on Porter’s Five Forces model.
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FAQ
Q1. What is the social commerce market size?
Answer: The global social commerce market is expected to reach an estimated $4172.8 billion by 2030.
Q2. What is the growth forecast for social commerce market?
Answer: The global social commerce market is expected to grow with a CAGR of 28.7% from 2024 to 2030.
Q3. What are the major drivers influencing the growth of the social commerce market?
Answer: The major drivers for this market are n increase in the use of social media, growth and attraction of online shopping, amount of time spent on these sites on average during the pandemic, and the convenience of online shopping.
Q4. What are the major segments for social commerce market?
Answer: The future of the global social commerce market looks promising with opportunities in the business to consumer, business to business, and consumer to consumer markets.
Q5. Who are the key social commerce market companies?
Answer: Some of the key social commerce companies are as follows:
• Etsy
• Fashnear Technologies
• Meta Platforms
• Pinduoduo
• Pinterest
• TikTok
• Poshmark
Q6. Which social commerce market segment will be the largest in future?
Answer: Lucintel forecasts that apparels will remain the largest segment over the forecast period because most individuals spent their time online during the covid-19 pandemic, fashion businesses found new ways to foster the buying experience, work with influencers and artists, and establish new connections.
Q7. In social commerce market, which region is expected to be the largest in next 5 years?
Answer: APAC is expected to witness highest growth over the forecast period due to growing investments in the infrastructure supporting telecommunications, the increasing use of smartphones, and the popularity of social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.
Q8. Do we receive customization in this report?
Answer: Yes, Lucintel provides 10% customization without any additional cost.
This report answers following 11 key questions:
Q.1. What are some of the most promising, high-growth opportunities for the social commerce market by business model (business to consumer, business to business, and consumer to consumer), product type (personal & beauty care, apparels, accessories, home products, health supplements, food & beverage, and others), sales channel (video commerce (live stream + prerecorded), social network-led commerce, social reselling, group buying, and product review platforms), and region (North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, and the Rest of the World)?
Q.2. Which segments will grow at a faster pace and why?
Q.3. Which region will grow at a faster pace and why?
Q.4. What are the key factors affecting market dynamics? What are the key challenges and business risks in this market?
Q.5. What are the business risks and competitive threats in this market?
Q.6. What are the emerging trends in this market and the reasons behind them?
Q.7. What are some of the changing demands of customers in the market?
Q.8. What are the new developments in the market? Which companies are leading these developments?
Q.9. Who are the major players in this market? What strategic initiatives are key players pursuing for business growth?
Q.10. What are some of the competing products in this market and how big of a threat do they pose for loss of market share by material or product substitution?
Q.11. What M&A activity has occurred in the last 5 years and what has its impact been on the industry?
For any questions related to Social Commerce Market, Social Commerce Market Size, Social Commerce Market Growth, Social Commerce Market Analysis, Social Commerce Market Report, Social Commerce Market Share, Social Commerce Market Trends, Social Commerce Market Forecast, Social Commerce Companies, write Lucintel analyst at email: helpdesk@lucintel.com. We will be glad to get back to you soon.