Contextual Commerce Change Shopping Experience

Contextual commerce combines the power of data from smartphones with the ease of interaction in physical spaces. 

Idea of “contextual commerce”  is, products that are delivered to a consumer as and when they are needed. 

Contextual commerce flips these current shopping paradigms on their head, turning the purchasing process into something that works in the customer’s favor — and not against them.

Contextual Commerce Change Shopping Experience, using data from devices like wearables, smartphones, and smart thermostats, the Internet of Things can help to streamline the shopping process. More importantly, it can ease the way we interact with products in physical spaces, not just in the online realm where it’s mostly been confined up until now.

The big issue with contextual commerce is that it treads a thin line between ultra-convenience and some potential breaches in privacy. 

The widespread effects of these changes in the digital world, their gradual move into our physical lives will drastically blur the lines between our online and real-life experiences.

WeChat a Must for Brands in China

Messaging app WeChat is something of a phenomenon. With around 600 million users, it is the largest standalone messaging app, and is currently ranked the fifth most popular mobile app in the world by Global Web Index, behind only Google Maps, G+, YouTube, and Facebook.

The strength of its reach and influence is such that brands looking to get a foothold in China seriously have to consider it within their mobile strategy for China, sometimes even leading with WeChat before they embark on their own applications, which have to be downloaded from an app store.

Native apps still play a role, but the decision to build one in China has to include a discussion around WeChat.

WeChat has an active, already enthusiastic audience – they are familiar with the structure, are happy to start a dialogue with other users.

Recent announcement of WeChat sponsored Ads, reaching an audience might be easier.

Like2Buy on Instagram

Curalate, a Philadelphia start-up specializing in visual marketing and analytics, has launched Like2Buy, a platform that makes it easier for people to shop on Instagram, as well as marketers to know what resonates with consumers.

Like2Buy places a link in a brand’s profile that when clicked, takes customers to a gallery identical to the company’s Instagram feed. 

“Some of the retail brands we work with could tell Instagram was driving revenue,” says Brendan Lowry, Curalate’s marketing director. “They’d post a product and see a slight increase in sales. But without a direct tie to Instagram, it was difficult for marketing to know exactly what was happening.”

Curalate’s main goal is to bridge this gap between Instagram and marketing, and allow marketers to gain true transparency into what is driving traffic and revenue. “They spent all this time and money to build the community but they’ve only been able to report on likes and follower growth,” Lowry comments.

Another goal, Lowry notes, is to make it as simple as possible for customers to get to the brands’ checkout pages – which they already trust, he points out – without them having to register for anything or even provide an email address.

Scott Houchin, managing principal of digital at knowledge process outsourcer eClerx, thinks Like2Buy shows the purchase power of Instagram’s younger audience.

“Their whole lives are consumed in these social ecosystems, so as they enter the workforce and start making money, we’re going to see a very accelerated curve of social commerce adoption,” he says.

Like2Buy isn’t the only platform to make Instagram shoppable, and others have attempted it in the past. 

Facebook Experiments Buy Button

New feature will allow users to purchase items without ever leaving Facebook.

Facebook is trying out a “Buy” button that will let users make purchases from ads and companies’ Pages, all without leaving Facebook’s platform. Customers also have the option to store their payment information, which eliminates two big conversion hurdles: getting a customer to the checkout screen and having them enter their credit card number.

 Facebook says the Buy button is as secure as possible.

But while some people might think the feature allows businesses to intrude on their social community.

And this isn’t Facebook’s first foray into the e-commerce sector. Two years ago, the platform launched Collections. 

Pinterest Highlights Products for Sale in Gifts Feed

The new feed showcases only Product Pins, or Rich Pins with information about pricing and availability

Pinterest has created a Gifts feed to showcase the items on the network that are for sale, the visual discovery tool revealed on its official Pinterest business blog.

The Gifts feed, which the post describes as a “work-in-progress feed,” displays only Product Pins, which are Rich Pins that include additional details like real-time pricing, availability, and where they can be purchased. With Product Pins, pinners also receive email notifications when pins they’ve added drop in price.

Product Pins help pinners “decide which products are right for them,” the post says.

The Gifts feed also includes price filters designated by dollar signs “so you can find something for every budget,” Pinterest says.

According to the post, $$$$ represents products that cost more than $200, $$$ shows products between $50 and $200, $$ is for products from $25 to $50, and $ “is anything less than that.”

“So far, we’ve learned that Product Pins get higher click-through rates than regular Pins and make your brand more visible because of the logo on the Pin,” the post says.

Product Pins also include tabs that pinners can click to see the products on the e-commerce sites where they can be purchased.

Pinterest says it launched the Gifts feed because “we know people love to use Pinterest for shopping ideas.”

The Gifts feed lives within Pinterest’s regular categories.