What is Social Commerce?

Key Takeaways

• Social commerce enables customers to complete purchases without leaving social media platforms, reducing friction in the buying journey
• Businesses leveraging social commerce can tap into built-in audiences of billions, with projected US sales exceeding $100 billion by 2025
• Social proof through reviews, comments, and user-generated content significantly increases consumer trust and conversion rates
• The integration of shopping experiences within social platforms creates powerful opportunities for impulse purchases and personalized marketing
• Unlike traditional e-commerce, social commerce creates community-driven shopping experiences that foster brand loyalty and engagement

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The days of the traditional shopping journey are rapidly evolving. Social commerce is revolutionizing how we discover and purchase products online, creating seamless experiences where consumers can shop without ever leaving their favorite social platforms. Market Business Watch explores how this integration of shopping features into social media is reshaping the retail landscape and offering unprecedented opportunities for businesses of all sizes.

Social Commerce Explained: Shopping Within Social Media

Social commerce represents the convergence of social media engagement and e-commerce functionality. Unlike traditional online shopping that requires navigating to separate websites or apps, social commerce enables the entire shopping journey—from product discovery to checkout—to happen directly within social media platforms. This frictionless experience is transforming casual scrolling into shopping opportunities and changing consumer behavior in profound ways.

The concept is simple yet revolutionary: allow users to purchase products they discover in their feeds without disrupting their social media experience. When a user sees a product they like, they can tap on it, view details, and complete a purchase—all without switching applications or visiting external websites. This streamlined approach eliminates the traditional conversion barriers that often lead to abandoned carts in conventional e-commerce.

Definition of Social Commerce vs Traditional E-commerce

While both social commerce and traditional e-commerce involve online transactions, they differ fundamentally in their approach and user experience. Traditional e-commerce requires consumers to visit dedicated websites or online marketplaces with the explicit intention to shop. The customer journey typically involves multiple steps: searching for products, navigating to websites, browsing catalogs, and completing checkout processes that often feel disconnected from the discovery phase.

Social commerce, by contrast, integrates shopping directly into the social media experience. It capitalizes on the spontaneous nature of social media browsing, transforming moments of engagement into opportunities for purchase. The boundaries between content consumption and shopping blur, creating a more organic and intuitive buying process that feels less transactional and more experiential.

The Growth of In-Platform Purchasing

The evolution of in-platform purchasing has been remarkable over the past few years. What began as simple “buy buttons” has developed into sophisticated shopping ecosystems within social platforms. Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, and TikTok have all introduced native shopping features that allow businesses to create virtual storefronts, tag products in posts, and process payments without requiring users to leave the platform.

This growth is driven by changing consumer expectations for convenience and the recognition by social platforms that commerce represents a significant revenue opportunity. The pandemic accelerated this trend dramatically, with social platforms rapidly expanding their commerce capabilities as online shopping surged. Today’s consumers increasingly expect to be able to purchase what they see immediately, and social commerce satisfies this demand for instant gratification.

5 Major Benefits of Social Commerce For Businesses

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The integration of shopping functionality into social media platforms offers businesses unprecedented opportunities to connect with consumers and drive sales. Social commerce isn’t just another sales channel—it represents a fundamental shift in how businesses can engage with potential customers, leveraging the unique strengths of social platforms to create more effective and personalized shopping experiences.

Shortened Customer Journey From Discovery to Purchase

Traditional e-commerce often involves a lengthy path to purchase, with multiple steps between product discovery and completing a transaction. Each additional step in this journey represents an opportunity for the customer to abandon their purchase. Social commerce dramatically compresses this journey by allowing users to move from discovery to purchase in just a few taps, significantly reducing the friction that leads to abandoned carts.

This shortened path creates powerful opportunities for impulse purchases. When consumers can act immediately on their interest in a product, conversion rates typically increase. The immediacy of social commerce capitalizes on emotional purchasing decisions before consumer interest has time to cool, turning passive browsing into active buying without the traditional barriers.

Access to Massive Built-in Audiences

One of the most compelling advantages of social commerce is immediate access to enormous built-in audiences. Facebook alone has nearly 3 billion monthly active users, while Instagram counts over 1 billion. These platforms have already gathered the audience—businesses simply need to present their products effectively to tap into this massive potential customer base.

For businesses looking to expand their reach further, exploring B2B marketplaces can also be a strategic move.

This access is particularly valuable for small businesses and startups that lack the resources for extensive marketing campaigns. Social commerce democratizes retail by allowing smaller players to compete alongside established brands, reaching potential customers without massive advertising budgets. The algorithmic nature of social platforms can help businesses reach precisely the users most likely to be interested in their products.

Enhanced Trust Through Social Proof

Social commerce harnesses the power of social proof in ways traditional e-commerce cannot match. When users see friends and influencers they trust interacting with products—liking, commenting, sharing, or reviewing them—they’re significantly more likely to consider purchasing those items themselves. This digital word-of-mouth creates an authenticity that traditional advertising struggles to achieve.

Comments, reviews, and user-generated content serve as powerful trust signals that influence purchasing decisions. In fact, studies show that 79% of consumers are highly influenced by user-generated content when making purchasing decisions. Social commerce platforms integrate these trust elements directly into the shopping experience, creating a more transparent environment where consumers can easily assess the popularity and satisfaction level of products.

For those new to online selling, exploring beginner e-commerce platforms can be a great start to understanding how to leverage these trust signals effectively.

The community aspect of social media allows for real-time social validation of purchases. When potential customers can see others actively engaging with products—asking questions, sharing experiences, and making purchases—it creates a powerful sense of FOMO (fear of missing out) that can drive conversion rates significantly higher than traditional e-commerce channels.

Better Data Collection and Customer Insights

Social commerce provides businesses with unprecedented access to consumer data and insights. Unlike traditional e-commerce where customer data may be limited to purchase history, social platforms offer rich behavioral information including interests, engagement patterns, and demographic details. This wealth of data enables highly targeted marketing and personalized shopping experiences.

The interactive nature of social media creates opportunities for direct customer feedback that’s invaluable for product development and marketing strategy. Businesses can analyze comments, questions, and engagement metrics to understand consumer preferences and pain points in real-time, allowing for agile adjustments to product offerings and marketing approaches.

Improved Mobile Shopping Experience

Social media platforms are designed with mobile users as the primary audience, making social commerce inherently mobile-optimized. This mobile-first approach is crucial given that over 79% of smartphone users have made a purchase online using their mobile device in the last six months. Traditional e-commerce often struggles with mobile conversion rates due to complicated checkout processes and non-optimized interfaces.

The seamless mobile experience offered by social commerce removes many of the friction points that lead to abandoned carts on traditional mobile e-commerce sites. With payment information already stored and simplified checkout processes, users can complete purchases in seconds rather than minutes, dramatically improving conversion rates on mobile devices.

The Top Social Commerce Platforms

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While many social media platforms now offer commerce features, each platform provides unique advantages and attracts different demographic segments. Understanding the strengths of each platform is essential for businesses looking to develop an effective social commerce strategy that reaches their target audience and showcases their products in the most compelling way.

For businesses interested in expanding their reach, exploring the best B2B marketplaces can also be beneficial.

Instagram Shop and Checkout Features

Instagram has established itself as a powerhouse in social commerce with features like Instagram Shop, product tags in posts and stories, and native checkout functionality. The visually-oriented nature of the platform makes it ideal for showcasing products, particularly in fashion, beauty, home decor, and lifestyle categories. With over 1 billion monthly active users and 90% of them following at least one business, Instagram offers unparalleled opportunities to connect products with interested consumers.

The platform’s shopping features are deeply integrated into the user experience, allowing businesses to tag products in regular posts, Stories, Reels, and even IGTV. This multi-format approach means brands can showcase products in various contexts—from polished product photography to authentic user-generated content and engaging video demonstrations. The native checkout feature completes the experience by allowing users to purchase without leaving the app, reducing friction in the buying process.

For businesses looking to expand their reach, exploring B2B marketplaces can offer additional opportunities for growth.

Facebook Marketplace and Shops

Facebook’s massive user base of nearly 3 billion monthly active users makes it an essential platform for social commerce. Facebook Shops allows businesses to create customizable online storefronts that appear across both Facebook and Instagram, creating a consistent shopping experience across platforms. The integration with Facebook Marketplace further extends reach by allowing businesses to list products in a dedicated shopping destination that millions of users visit specifically to browse and buy.

What sets Facebook apart is its sophisticated targeting capabilities. The platform’s deep understanding of user demographics, interests, and behaviors enables precisely targeted product promotions that reach the most relevant potential customers. For businesses selling to specific niche markets or demographics, this targeting precision can significantly improve conversion rates and marketing ROI compared to broader e-commerce channels.

TikTok Shop’s Rapid Growth

TikTok has emerged as the fastest-growing platform for social commerce, particularly among younger consumers. With over 1 billion active users and unprecedented engagement rates, TikTok’s unique algorithm excels at surfacing products to interested users even when they don’t follow the brand. The platform’s TikTok Shop feature allows businesses to sell products directly through videos, LIVE streams, and a dedicated shopping tab, creating multiple touchpoints for discovery and purchase.

What makes TikTok particularly powerful for commerce is its authentic, creative content style that resonates with Gen Z and Millennial shoppers. Products frequently go viral through organic user-generated content, creating massive demand almost overnight. The #TikTokMadeMeBuyIt phenomenon has become a legitimate marketing force, with products selling out within days after going viral on the platform.

Pinterest’s Buyable Pins

Pinterest offers a unique advantage in the social commerce landscape as a platform where users actively seek inspiration for future purchases. Unlike other social media where shopping is secondary to social interaction, Pinterest users often come to the platform specifically for product discovery and planning purposes. With over 450 million monthly active users who are already in a shopping mindset, Pinterest provides fertile ground for social commerce.

The platform’s Buyable Pins and Product Pins allow businesses to connect their catalogs directly to Pinterest, making products discoverable and purchasable within the platform. What sets Pinterest apart is its longer consideration cycle—users often save products weeks or months before purchasing, making it particularly valuable for higher-priced items where consumers conduct more research before buying. The visual discovery engine excels at connecting consumers with products that match their aesthetic preferences and interests.

How Social Commerce Is Changing Consumer Behavior

The integration of shopping into social media isn’t just changing where people shop—it’s fundamentally altering how they shop. Social commerce is creating new consumer behaviors and expectations that will shape retail for years to come. As these platforms continue to evolve their commerce capabilities, we’re witnessing significant shifts in how consumers discover, evaluate, and purchase products.

The Rise of Impulse Purchasing

Social commerce has dramatically accelerated impulse purchasing by reducing friction between discovery and checkout. When consumers can move from seeing an intriguing product to owning it in just a few taps, the traditional consideration phase often disappears. This immediate gratification model has led to a significant rise in spontaneous purchases, particularly for lower-priced items where extensive research feels unnecessary.

The emotional nature of social media browsing—which typically occurs during leisure time when users are relaxed and receptive—creates an ideal environment for impulse decisions. When combined with limited-time offers, exclusive drops, and scarcity messaging, social platforms can create powerful FOMO (fear of missing out) that drives immediate purchasing decisions. For businesses, this creates opportunities to capitalize on trending moments and emotional connections that wouldn’t be possible in traditional e-commerce.

Influence of User-Generated Content on Buying Decisions

Today’s consumers increasingly distrust traditional advertising but place enormous value on authentic recommendations from peers and influencers. Social commerce platforms amplify this effect by integrating user-generated content directly into the shopping experience. When potential customers can see real people using and recommending products within their feed, it creates a level of trust that traditional product photography cannot match.

This shift has fundamentally changed the purchase journey. Many consumers now actively seek out user reviews, demonstrations, and authentic content before making decisions. Brands that successfully encourage and showcase user-generated content within social commerce experiences typically see significantly higher conversion rates. The most successful social commerce strategies now focus on facilitating and amplifying customer advocacy rather than solely creating branded content.

For those looking to explore the tools that can enhance their online presence, checking out beginner e-commerce platforms can be a great starting point.

Community-Based Shopping Experiences

Perhaps the most profound shift in consumer behavior is the evolution toward community-based shopping experiences. Traditional e-commerce is primarily a solitary activity, while social commerce introduces communal elements that make shopping feel more like a shared experience. When consumers can see friends’ purchases, participate in live shopping events with others, and engage in conversations about products, shopping becomes inherently social again—mirroring aspects of the traditional in-store experience that e-commerce had previously lost.

This community dimension creates powerful new forms of engagement between brands and consumers. Successful brands now build dedicated communities around their products, encouraging interaction, feedback, and shared experiences. These communities foster brand loyalty that transcends individual transactions, creating emotional connections that drive repeat purchases and word-of-mouth referrals. The most successful social commerce strategies now focus on community building as much as they do on sales transactions.

How to Start Selling Through Social Commerce

Implementing social commerce doesn’t need to be overwhelming, even for small businesses or those new to digital selling. By taking a strategic, step-by-step approach, businesses of any size can begin leveraging social platforms to drive sales. The key is starting with clear objectives and gradually expanding your social commerce presence as you learn what resonates with your audience.

Step 1: Choose the Right Platform for Your Products

Not all social platforms will be equally effective for your specific products and target audience. Begin by analyzing where your potential customers spend their time and which platforms best showcase your particular products. Visual products like fashion and home decor typically perform well on Instagram and Pinterest, while demonstrable products that benefit from showing features in action may find more success on TikTok or Facebook.

Consider the demographic breakdown of each platform alongside your target customer profile. TikTok reaches a predominantly younger audience, Pinterest skews toward women with higher discretionary income, while Facebook reaches a broader, often older demographic. Starting with 1-2 platforms that best align with your products and target audience will allow you to focus your efforts effectively rather than spreading resources too thin across multiple platforms.

Step 2: Set Up Your Social Shop

Once you’ve selected your platform(s), the next step is creating your social shop. This process varies by platform but typically involves connecting your product catalog and configuring your storefront. Most major platforms now offer detailed guides and setup wizards to walk businesses through this process. For Facebook and Instagram Shops, you’ll need a Commerce Manager account, while Pinterest requires a business account with catalog integration.

During setup, pay special attention to product categorization, tagging, and descriptions. These elements significantly impact discoverability within the platform’s search and recommendation algorithms. Use clear, benefit-focused descriptions and ensure all products have high-quality images that display well in both feed and shop formats. Many platforms now also support video content for products, which typically drives higher engagement and conversion rates.

Step 3: Create Shoppable Content

The most successful social commerce strategies blend promotional content seamlessly with engaging, valuable content that users want to consume. Develop a content strategy that showcases products in context, demonstrating their benefits and applications rather than simply listing features. Experiment with different content formats—including photos, videos, stories, and live streams—to discover what generates the most engagement with your specific audience.

Make all appropriate content shoppable by tagging products whenever they appear. This creates multiple entry points to your shop and allows for spontaneous discovery. Consider creating content series that highlight different product categories, showcase customer testimonials, or demonstrate various ways to use your products. The key is maintaining a balance between promotional content and valuable information that serves your audience’s interests beyond pure sales messaging.

• Product demonstrations showing items in use
• Behind-the-scenes content showing product creation
• Customer testimonials and reviews
• Educational content about your product category
• Trend-based content connecting your products to current interests

Step 4: Implement Social Proof Strategies

Actively cultivate social proof by encouraging customers to share their experiences with your products. Create branded hashtags that make it easy to find and share user-generated content. Consider implementing post-purchase email sequences that specifically request reviews, photos, or videos from satisfied customers, potentially offering incentives for sharing their experiences on social platforms.

When you receive positive feedback or user-generated content, amplify it through your official channels. Resharing customer content not only provides valuable social proof but also makes customers feel valued and recognized. For platforms that support customer reviews directly within the shopping experience, actively encourage satisfied customers to leave ratings and detailed feedback that can influence future shoppers.

Common Social Commerce Challenges and Solutions

While social commerce offers tremendous opportunities, businesses often encounter challenges when implementing and scaling their strategies. Understanding these common obstacles and having prepared solutions can help you navigate the social commerce landscape more effectively and avoid pitfalls that might otherwise limit your success.

Managing Customer Service Across Platforms

As your social commerce presence expands across multiple platforms, managing customer inquiries, complaints, and support requests can become increasingly complex. Customers expect prompt responses regardless of where they interact with your brand, and failing to address their concerns quickly can damage your reputation and sales. Many businesses struggle to monitor and respond to messages across various platforms while maintaining consistent quality and response times.

The solution lies in implementing unified social management tools that consolidate messages from all platforms into a single dashboard. Tools like Sprout Social, Hootsuite, or dedicated commerce solutions allow team members to see and respond to customer inquiries from any platform without constantly switching between apps. Establishing clear response protocols and templates for common questions can also help maintain consistency while improving efficiency. For businesses with limited resources, consider focusing your customer service efforts on your primary 1-2 platforms rather than trying to maintain an active presence everywhere.

Maintaining Consistent Brand Experience

Creating a cohesive brand experience across multiple social platforms, each with different formats, features, and audience expectations, presents significant challenges. Consumers expect consistency in product information, pricing, and brand voice regardless of where they encounter your products. When inconsistencies occur between platforms or between social commerce and your website, it can create confusion and erode trust.

Address this challenge by creating comprehensive brand guidelines specifically for social commerce that outline how your brand voice, visual identity, and product information should be adapted for each platform while maintaining core consistency. Centralize product information management so updates to descriptions, pricing, or availability propagate automatically across all sales channels. Regular audits of your social commerce presence across platforms can help identify and correct inconsistencies before they impact customer experience.

The Future of Social Commerce

Social commerce is evolving rapidly, with new technologies and features continuously reshaping the landscape. Understanding emerging trends, such as 5G and AI connectivity, can help businesses stay ahead of the curve and position themselves to capitalize on new opportunities as they develop. The next few years promise to bring even more immersive and frictionless shopping experiences that further blur the lines between social engagement and commerce.

Live Shopping and Streaming Commerce

Live shopping represents one of the most significant emerging trends in social commerce, combining the engagement of live video with immediate purchasing capabilities. Already mainstream in China—where live commerce generates billions in sales—this format is rapidly gaining traction in Western markets through platforms like Instagram Live Shopping, TikTok LIVE, and Amazon Live. The real-time interaction creates urgency, builds trust through authentic demonstrations, and allows hosts to address questions instantly.

• Interactive elements like polls, questions, and comments create two-way engagement
• Limited-time offers during streams drive immediate purchasing decisions
• Collaboration opportunities with influencers expand reach to new audiences
• Analytics provide real-time feedback on viewer engagement and conversion
• Replays extend the value of live content for those who couldn’t attend

For businesses looking to capitalize on this trend, start by experimenting with regular live sessions that combine product demonstrations with engaging content and special offers. Even with modest production values, authenticity and real interaction typically outperform highly produced content in driving conversion. Consider partnering with relevant influencers who already have engaged audiences interested in your product category.

The most successful live shopping strategies combine entertainment value with practical product information, creating experiences that viewers want to participate in even if they aren’t immediately planning to purchase. This community-building approach drives long-term engagement that translates to sustained sales growth rather than one-off transactions.

AR/VR Virtual Try-On Experiences

“Virtual try-on technologies are removing one of the last major barriers to online shopping by allowing consumers to visualize products in their own environment or on themselves before purchasing. This technology is expected to reduce return rates by up to 40% while increasing conversion by 30-100% depending on the product category.” – McKinsey Digital Commerce Report

Augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) are transforming social commerce by allowing consumers to virtually try products before purchasing. From cosmetics brands enabling virtual makeup application to furniture retailers letting customers visualize items in their homes, these technologies address a fundamental limitation of online shopping—the inability to physically interact with products before buying.

Major platforms are rapidly integrating these capabilities into their commerce features. Snapchat’s AR shopping tools, Instagram’s filter-based try-on features, and Pinterest’s “Try On” pins demonstrate how these technologies are becoming mainstream rather than novelties. For businesses, implementing AR/VR features can significantly reduce return rates while increasing conversion by giving customers greater confidence in their purchases.

While full implementation may require technical resources, many platforms now offer simplified AR tools that businesses can implement with minimal development. Starting with simple applications—like allowing customers to visualize product colors or sizes—can provide immediate benefits while building foundation for more sophisticated implementations as the technology becomes more accessible.

Conversational Commerce and AI Shopping Assistants

AI-powered shopping assistants and chatbots are evolving from basic customer service tools to sophisticated personal shopping advisors within social commerce environments. These conversational interfaces help customers find products, answer questions, and make purchase decisions through natural language interactions that mimic human conversation. As these systems become more advanced, they’re increasingly able to provide personalized recommendations based on customer preferences and behavior.

For those interested in leveraging AI for marketing, exploring the use of AI in content marketing can provide additional insights into the capabilities of AI technologies.

The integration of these AI assistants directly into social shopping experiences creates powerful opportunities for guided selling. Rather than browsing through catalogs, customers can simply describe what they’re looking for and receive instant, personalized recommendations. These conversational interfaces are particularly valuable on mobile devices, where traditional browsing and search can be cumbersome.

For businesses looking to implement conversational commerce, start with focused applications that address common customer questions or help with product selection. Many platforms now offer templated chatbot builders that require minimal technical expertise to implement. As AI technology continues to advance, these systems will become increasingly sophisticated in understanding customer intent and providing truly personalized shopping guidance.

Frequently Asked Questions

As social commerce continues to evolve, businesses often have questions about implementation, best practices, and expected results. Here are answers to the most common questions we receive from businesses considering or expanding their social commerce strategies.

What’s the difference between social commerce and e-commerce?

E-commerce encompasses all online sales transactions, typically conducted through dedicated websites or marketplaces where consumers visit with explicit shopping intent. The experience is centered around the transaction itself, with defined steps for browsing, selection, and checkout. E-commerce platforms are designed specifically for selling, with features optimized for conversion and purchase completion.

Social commerce, by contrast, integrates shopping functionality directly into social media platforms where users primarily come for entertainment, connection, and discovery rather than with explicit purchase intent. The shopping experience becomes part of the social interaction, with products discovered through content consumption rather than deliberate searching. The key distinction is that social commerce removes the boundaries between social engagement and shopping, allowing transactions to occur within the social experience without redirecting to external sites.

From a business perspective, traditional e-commerce typically requires driving traffic to your site through various marketing channels, while social commerce capitalizes on existing platform traffic and engagement. Social commerce also tends to excel at discovery and impulse purchases, while traditional e-commerce often performs better for considered purchases where extensive product comparison is needed.

Which social media platform is best for selling products?

The most effective platform for your social commerce strategy depends heavily on your specific product category, target audience demographics, and content capabilities. Instagram and Pinterest typically excel for visually-driven products in fashion, beauty, home decor, and lifestyle categories due to their image-focused formats and shopping-friendly features. TikTok has emerged as particularly powerful for products that benefit from demonstration or have strong appeal to younger demographics, while Facebook’s diverse user base makes it valuable for reaching older consumers and B2B markets.

Rather than selecting platforms based solely on their commerce features, analyze where your target audience is most active and engaged. A platform with slightly less advanced shopping features but where your audience is highly engaged will typically outperform a more commerce-optimized platform where your audience has limited presence. Most businesses find the most success by focusing on 1-2 platforms initially rather than trying to maintain a presence everywhere.

For products with higher price points or that require more consideration before purchase, platforms that support detailed content and longer user sessions (like Facebook, Pinterest, or YouTube) often outperform faster-paced platforms like TikTok or Snapchat. Conversely, trend-sensitive or impulse purchase products typically perform exceptionally well on platforms with viral content mechanics and younger audiences.

How much does it cost to set up social commerce for my business?

The basic implementation of social commerce features on most major platforms requires minimal direct investment. Setting up Instagram Shopping, Facebook Shops, Pinterest Product Pins, or TikTok Shop functionality is free, with platforms typically taking a percentage of sales rather than charging upfront fees. This commission-based model makes social commerce accessible even to small businesses with limited capital, allowing them to test the channel with minimal financial risk.

Can small businesses compete effectively in social commerce?

Small businesses often have significant advantages in social commerce compared to larger competitors. The authentic, personal connection that smaller brands can establish resonates strongly in social environments where users seek genuine interactions. Many consumers actively prefer supporting independent businesses they discover on social platforms, seeing these purchases as more meaningful than buying from large corporations.

The algorithmic nature of social platforms also levels the playing field, as content that generates strong engagement can reach large audiences regardless of the business’s size or advertising budget. Many small businesses have built multi-million dollar revenue streams primarily through organic social commerce by creating compelling content that resonates with specific niche audiences. The key to success is focusing on authentic storytelling, community building, and creating distinctive products rather than trying to compete with larger brands on volume or advertising spend.

Do I need a website to use social commerce features?

While having a website was once a prerequisite for most social commerce features, many platforms now allow businesses to sell directly without requiring an external website. Facebook and Instagram Shops can function as standalone storefronts, and TikTok Shop allows businesses to sell products directly through the platform without external infrastructure. This makes social commerce increasingly accessible to new entrepreneurs who want to test business concepts before investing in website development.

That said, having your own website alongside social commerce channels provides important advantages for growing businesses. A website gives you complete control over the customer experience, allows for more detailed product information, and provides a hub for content that can support your social commerce efforts. Most importantly, it gives you ownership of customer data and direct communication channels that aren’t subject to platform algorithm changes or policy updates.