In the last couple of decades, e-Commerce has emerged as one of the fastest growing segments of the global economy and Amazon has been the global star of this growth journey. However, recent developments indicate that a significant chunk of new age shoppers is shifting to Social Media such as TikTok as its entry point in online shopping.
Clock Addictive Social Media Apps are becoming more influential for new age shoppers
The new age shoppers are very active on Social Media and many of them spend a huge amount of time daily on these channels for expression, entertainment and engagement. Many apps such as Instagram, TikTok, YouTube and others have several engaging & entertaining features such as reels, shorts which are now also influencing and guiding the buying journey of these new age shoppers.
Various recent reports indicate that for several shoppers in the teenage and youth segment TikTok is becoming the winning choice of first search for shopping in comparison to Amazon.
Source of Information – https://bloom.bg/3RlPCSH
Can such a significant shift of users/buyers develop into a permanent shift of buying destination as well?
The answer, of course, depends on several other variables as well, chief among them being how the more ‘efficiency’ driven e-commerce channels such as Amazon respond to this evolving shift.
How Amazon is preparing for the new age shopping experience?
- The ‘legendary’ Amazon Fly-Wheel
This model drives necessary traffic on amazon, creates more business and the momentum keeps it growing in the same direction.
The key components of the fly-wheel are:
- Customer experience / Convenience
- Selection
- Low Prices
The ideology here is that these fundamentals will always stay relevant, irrespective of geography or generation of shoppers and so, following these fundamentals is the key to creating a long-lasting humongous business. Based on this model Amazon has grown into
becoming the most preferred choice for online shopping around the globe. However, Amazon, so far, definitely lacks the entertaining and addictive engagement offered by these new-age social media channels which seems to be attracting & retaining more and more new age shoppers. But, it too has taken some steps to reduce this risk.
- Current features of Amazon marketplace for Engagement.
Though it is not like amazon has not made attempts to attract and give a user experience more than just a shopping website, some of which are still proving very relevant such as
Amazon Prime: which gives you a complete
- Media Library – of movies, shows, documentaries
- Kindle Unlimited – Where E books are available to attract the reading community.
Past Initiatives which did not performed well
- Spark – Was an ambitious project which was developed to provide a social media like interface to the users, which allowed them selection of preferred interest and category which gave them access to the feed of showcase posts from similar users.
This initiative never took off completely due to only prime members being able to use it; the attached cost was one of the main reasons for its failure.
- Amazon Inspire : The Latest Addition to improve shopping experience by Amazon
The new Amazon Inspire initiative is also focused to create a social media community effect in a more engaging way. It will be a part of the current Amazon app experience where you can select your preferred category based on interest to get access to images, videos of personalized shoppable products, though at first it will be available in the US market only, its success will determine its future for the rest of the world.
Some Key Suggestions Amazon can utilize for keeping the young shopper attracted.
- Website and App Experience which is more engaging for the age group of 15-25.
There are many shopping websites and apps on the internet which are designed to cater their product availability in a much more appealing manner that resonates with the new age shopper.
Amazon on the other hand gives a very basic website layout and app experience, which undoubtedly is extremely efficient in functionality but it has to improve in its look and feel to attract new age minds.
- Addition of The Viral and Trending Factor.
The more edgy, entertaining and engagement focused Amazon in app experience and website will become, the more attention it will be able to hold for the first shopping search experience for young growing shoppers.
Some suggestions for improvement can be
- Giving Creating space to young creators to build Amazon’s own influencers to connect with potential buyers.
- Creating a reward category more like a commission for the influencer community which can help create an ecosystem of content creation, content consumption and earning for the creators.
- Creation of more social experience within the shopping platform