Exclusive | Social commerce is gaining momentum: SapientNitro's Prabhu Kannan

The evolution of social commerce from eCommerce is expected to lead the next wave of growth of digital marketing. This growth will be facilitated by increasing social interactions with users using social platform for communication. Social commerce which is about facilitating connections and conversations will help commerce as well as create opportunities for commerce within the context of on-going conversations.
 
According to the Nielsen Global Trust study, 40 million Indians are using online reviews to make informed purchase decisions. The research also indicates that Indians want brands to communicate with them through social platform. A company that fuses the best of creativity and technology to deliver superior customer experiences across both virtual and physical worlds is SapientNitro, a division of Sapient. A unique marketing services company, SapientNitro has a strong focus on multi-channel marketing and multi-channel commerce. To know more about the company’s initiatives, Adgully caught up with Prabhu Kannan, Director, Digital Commerce Capabilities. The following is the tete-e-tete of the conversation. 
 
Adgully (AG): Can you tell us something on social commerce? What does it actually mean and why so much of emphasis on it?
 
Prabhu Kannan (PK): Social commerce involves using social networks and collaborative tools that enable consumers to get trusted advice about a product or service within the context of ecommerce transactions. Emphasis on the social commerce is on the rise due to the fact that over 80 per cent of online users are connected to one or more social media platforms and according to Booz Allen Hamilton, $30 billion will be spent via social commerce by 2015. 
 
In India, social commerce is gaining momentum because social media has become part of everyday life for a majority of online Indians. Facebook has over 46 million users and Twitter has an estimated 14 million users. According to a TNS digital life study conducted last year, 28 per cent of the polled social media users said that they would be open to buying products on social networks.
 
AG: How is social commerce different from e-commerce?
 
PK: Social commerce is a form of ecommerce that is triggered by the social dynamics of the consumers. Social commerce involves using social media to support interaction and user contributions, in order to assist in the purchase or sale of products and services. It is about facilitating consumer-to-consumer conversations both on the brand site as well as on the social networks that create opportunities for commerce.
 
AG: It is being said that social commerce will fuel the next phase of growth in ecommerce? How will this be possible?
 
PK: About 82 per cent of the world’s online population visits social networking sites and spend more than 20 per cent of the total time spent online in the social networking sites sharing everything from life events to likes to purchases. Social commerce has a huge potential with the boom in the e-commerce industry and the emergence of social media networks. However, there are a few pre-requisites for the rise of social commerce as a sector. It requires investment in features that facilitate consumer-to-consumer connections during commerce, extension of engagement using social technologies to customer service and an eye for innovations in this space.
 
AG: Social networks are influencing organizations in their approach today – in what they sell, in the manner they look at their customers and competitors in a major way already. But how will social commerce help a company which is into selling of goods. Will sales through traditional marketing methods replaced by sales through social commerce?
 
PK: A company can benefit immensely with word of mouth publicity or recommendations on social networks by the right influencers. However, this does not mean traditional marketing and other channels of sales will be replaced by social commerce. On the contrary, it will further boost sales through traditional channels.
 
AG: What do growth trends in social commerce indicate? What is SapientNitro doing in this space? How do you help the corporate?
 
PK: There is a need for brands to have or facilitate authentic conversations with and between consumers on social networks. Most of the digital commerce engagements that SapientNitro delivers have social components in the form of ratings, reviews, recommendations etc. Our innovative campaigns such as Sneakerpedia and Share Happy (redefining usage of technology to tap into emotions and drive brand adoption) build and harness the power of communities through technology and social media. 
 
AG: Can you elaborate with an example where your involvement has really made a difference to a corporate?
 
PK: Companies and brands have a new consumer today - a consumer who is constantly evolving his use of digital technology, both as a medium of communication and commerce.  To address this consumer paradigm, brands must build experiences that maximize attraction, engagement, and commerce. A deep understanding of interplay between technology, strategy & creativity is required to create breakthrough ideas that have transformative impact.
 
Our ability to bring together multiple disciplines, perspectives, insights, methods to connect the right things to get at the right idea – “The connected idea” – produces experiences that address the new consumer paradigm. Our work with clients such as Unilever (Share Happy), Coke (UVend machine), Footlocker (Sneakerpedia) are good examples of the outcomes produced by the connected thinking.
 
AG: In a broader sense who are your target audience and how does each benefit from your actions?
 
PK: Brands, marketers and their consumers are our primary audience. The company has a strong focus on multi-channel marketing and multi-channel commerce, and technologies that bind them, in order to influence customer behavior across the spectrum of content, communication and commerce channels, resulting in deeper, more meaningful relationships between customers and brands. SapientNitro services global leaders such as Citi, The Coca-Cola Company, Foot Locker, Singapore Airlines, Target, and Vodafone through our operations in North America, Europe, and Asia-Pacific.
 
AG: How is India placed as compared to some of the developed countries in this space and how it is likely to be placed say in the next five years?
 
PK: Ecommerce through social commerce is gaining momentum in India. India is expected to have over 300 million Internet users in the next few years but the growth is not just likely to come from the broadband connection. India is going to leap frog into mobile/tablet era owing to the fast mobile penetration and availability of smart phones/tablets at affordable prices. This is likely to give rise to a new breed of shoppers who are Social, Mobile and Local (SoMoLo Shoppers). Enabled with their smart phones, these SoMoLo shoppers will look to shop on the go, sharing their preferences with their friends and family while shopping at a store, comparing prices while at a store and consequently, buying online or at a different store, look for deals that are local and relevant based on the location information they shared and so on so forth. As you can see, these Gen Y shoppers buy differently. The question that every marketer should ask is whether he or she is going sell differently.
 
AG: What are your business plans and strategy going ahead as far as India is concerned?
 
PK: We are already working with few of our global clients who have presence in India in the area of marketing & communications. Our strategy is to support our global clients in markets that they have presence in. We work with brands such as Citibank, Unilever and Coke in India.
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