Why some Big Tech companies are scaling back from social commerce

Over the last couple of weeks, Meta has revealed that it plans to scrap Facebook live shopping starting October 1, 2022. The company also recently said that it was stepping back from Instagram shopping. Tiktok also abandoned plans to expand its livestream shopping initiative to the US and the rest of Europe after an unsuccessful test run in the UK. These developments have left industry insiders wondering what could be driving these behaviors. 

In this blog post, we analyze the live shopping trend and argue some of the reasons why these platforms may have slowed down their adoption of social commerce. 

Why Meta and Tiktok have not nailed social commerce yet 

Below are some of the reasons why both Meta and Tiktok may have scaled back from live shopping. 

1. They haven’t made it easy for customers 

Usability is key when it comes to driving shifts in consumer behavior. Both Meta and Tiktok may have moved faster than customers were comfortable with. For the most part, the overall checkout experience hasn’t been as streamlined as needed. Ecommerce brands using Facebook’s live shopping features and Instagram shopping have actually argued that Meta has been more focused on its own financial goals than on delivering a nearly effortless work process. 

2. Recession fears may have slowed down growth 

Some analysts have argued that inflation and recession fears, especially triggered by rising energy prices and the war in Ukraine, have had an impact on diverse industries. This means that companies such as Meta and Tiktok have not seen the kind of adoption they anticipated when they launched social commerce in the first place. Stakeholders (including brands and consumers) could be reluctant of adopting new purchase habits with costs of living going over the roof. 

3. Marketers are still defining social commerce

While live shopping has been awesome in Asia, some marketers in the West are still trying to define how they can best utilize this trend. Some perceive social commerce as allowing customers to purchase everything in-app while others think including shoppable tags in content is simply enough. This only means that brands need time to catch up and agree on a uniform, workable approach. 

4. Native checkout isn’t really great

Social media firms are focused on owning first-party data. This explains why they been trying to capitalize on the social commerce trend by getting customers to complete purchases from within native social media apps. The problem with this is that the checkout experience hasn’t really been great. Perhaps more could have been done to create a seamless experience for both brands and creators. 

LOGIE’s novel approach to social commerce

LOGIE is the world’s first startup that’s using the power of big data and artificial intelligence to create streamlined social commerce experiences for both eCommerce marketers and content creators. Our platform – now being used by thousands of users across the United States – enables brands to use cutting edge technology to find the right influencer for each product (or category). This helps maximize marketing expenditure while also ensuring that creators attain maximum revenues by focusing exclusively on products within their selected/preferred niche. 

Conclusion 

While it’s clear that Meta and Tiktok have frozen their shoppable video plans, that may just be temporary. Data shows that the industry will continue to grow at a steady rate over the coming years. A report by Forbes predicted that social commerce will grow faster than e-Commerce and become a 1.2 trillion dollar industry by 2025. There’s a big likelihood that both Meta and Tiktok are not quitting but rather taking a break so they can re-strategize. More so, companies such as Shopify are making big moves to make social commerce a reality for their user base. The e-Commerce platform partnered with YouTube to create an integrated shoppable experience that can reach up to 2 billion monthly users.