Point of view: Shop talk
Molly Flatt1000heads
Social commerce – where the act of shopping becomes seamlessly embedded in the creation, sharing and consumption of social media content – has always been the pot of gold at the end of the social media rainbow. According to McKinsey, word of mouth drives 20-50% of purchase decisions, so enabling people to buy in the same venues and contexts where they're chatting with their peers makes total sense.
Unfortunately, it's had a less-than-salubrious history. Facebook has found it particularly hard to nail. First there was 2007's short-lived Beacon plug-in, which published users'...