Web3: The New Era of Social Commerce

Since their debut 15+ years ago, early social media platforms were designed with the primary goal of strengthening and enriching human connections. These early social networks cultivated vibrant online ecosystems through social networking, the sharing economy, gaming, e-commerce, and more.

As of 2024, more than 5 billion people are active on social media, giving businesses the opportunity to directly increase sales through social interactions. The high volume of social commerce activity can be attributed to a combination of factors, including the pandemic-driven push for social commerce, changing shopping behaviors, increased social media usage, the rise of influencer-generated content, and easier payment options. Users can discover products, read reviews, interact with other shoppers, and make purchases, all within their favorite social media platforms.

The user journey in social commerce can be divided into four main phases: discovery, trust, purchase, and brand loyalty.

However, there are many friction points in this four-step journey that can lead to purchase abandonment and cart abandonment, which ultimately results in the product not being purchased.

Almost all friction points arise from the collection, use, and sharing of data. Most of these data points relate to aspects of a user’s identity. This identity-related data includes social media behavior, shopping preferences, trust signals, shipping addresses, banking information, and preferred modes of ongoing engagement.