How WhatsApp and Instagram are Transforming E-commerce?

Messaging mediums such as WhatsApp and Instagram are opening gateways for retailers to sell their products through direct customer conversations at scale. With 175 million+ users sending WhatsApp messages to businesses every day and 90 percent of users on Instagram following at least one business, the opportunity for brands to increase sales is immense. And to leverage this opportunity to its fullest, brands need to adopt Conversational Commerce. 

Conversational Commerce enables store owners to use AI-driven messaging to acquire, convert, engage and support customers at every stage. This kind of selling method fosters a direct dialogue with customers at the right time offering them rich and personalized experiences. Whether users are looking for product information, gift advice, a shop location, flexible delivery, or making a dinner reservation, people chat with businesses for a variety of reasons and Conversational Commerce helps meet those needs. 

Studies also show that almost 53 percent of potential buyers prefer to purchase from companies that they can reach out to through direct chat. To understand how Conversational Commerce is transforming WhatsApp and Instagram, let’s look at some of its benefits: 

Respond to Customer Behavior and Trends - In a day, users spend an average of 38 mins on WhatsApp and 24 mins on Instagram. These are by far the two most popular messaging apps where your customers already spend their time and can easily discover your brand. In fact, 70 percent of shopping enthusiasts turn to Instagram for product discovery.

Right at the time of discovery, brands can instantly start a chat with their customers to guide them through the purchase journey and show how their products are a perfect fit for their needs, resulting in higher conversions and lesser drop-offs. 

Reduce Cart Abandonment - When a consumer leaves a website after adding items to their cart, but before checking out, it’s called cart abandonment. Customers can ditch their shopping idea for various reasons, for instance, low purchase intent, unexpected fees, long delivery times, etc, and brands across industries face this problem alike. 

Conversational Commerce can be extremely useful in this situation to bring those abandoned users back and recover carts by 20 to 30 percent. Brands use AI chatbots on WhatsApp and Instagram to remind customers about their pending carts, give attractive offers and discounts and persuade them to finish their transactions. All of it is encapsulated in a single personalized buying experience within the same channel. 

Provide Pre-Sales and Post-Sales Support - As users move closer to making their purchase decision, they require more pre-sales assistance to feel confident about their decision and answer all their queries. Equally significant is post-sale support. As a consumer purchases a product from an online store, they might wish to exchange it, give it a review, or check on the shipping status. At this point, AI chatbots can be used to make sure that users get the support they need, whenever they need it and convert them into loyal customers.   

Gather Actionable Feedback and Insights - Brands that listen to their customers, are the ones that succeed. But listening to millions of conversations by thousands of customers is not easy. Conversational commerce helps brands get a bird’s eye view of daily conversations at scale to derive actionable business insights. 

E-commerce brands can use these insights as feedback to understand the current demand and supply trends, user behavior, gaps in offerings, and more information to make data-driven decisions. This customer feedback is also critical for any brand to stay ahead of its competition and lead the industry in the long run. 

Upselling and Cross-Selling Opportunities - By selling more to consumers who are already considering purchasing from an e-store, upselling and cross-selling methods might provide the possibility to quadruple the income. To upsell products, a chatbot can recommend to customers the frequently bought together items, existing items in the cart, products back in stock, and other opportunities. 

To cross-sell the products, customers can be informed about products that go well with past purchases, new collections available by their favorite brands, seasonal sales, and more. And as the engagement with customers increases, more information is available to build ongoing and future campaigns. 

Build Customer Loyalty - The opportunity to make an excellent first impression is limited. Therefore, one can take advantage of this chance by lending a helping hand to a customer visiting the store for the first time. They may create significantly stronger customer relationships and increase customer trust by assisting clients through the remaining stages of their customer journey.

Every year, e-commerce brands also spend thousands of dollars on gamification ideas to build customer loyalty. However, the adoption levels are low, and take time to start showing results. An AI chatbot can help you achieve better and faster results with gamification through messaging as you can proactively reach out to your customers with your creative ideas on WhatsApp and Instagram.  

Final Words

There was a wave when websites were the next-big-thing and soon that attention shifted to mobile apps. Now is the era of messaging mediums like WhatsApp and Instagram and although the journey was long, it's definite that every brand is now prepared to start the conversational adventure and Commerce is at the forefront of it.