Meta Touts Its Social Commerce System at EMEA Event

As consumer behaviors and expectations continue changing, online shopping is morphing from an everyday task into a social experience. The adoption of eCommerce and digital payments — hastened during the pandemic — have brought about myriad ways of enabling people to interact with brands.

“While search engines and eCommerce sites are great at meeting customer demand for a product, they’re not effective at generating it. That’s the superpower of our platform,” Meta said in a blog post on Wednesday (June 15).  

Read more: Social Commerce Takes a Giant Step as Entertainment Melds With Entrepreneurship

“At Meta, we’ve spent more than a decade building a powerful discovery engine that anticipates customer needs, drives product discovery, and creates demand.” 

The Meta Discovery Commerce system is intended to show consumers merchandise that fits their style and desires but that they likely wouldn’t have come across on their own. 

“These moments of discovery are happening at scale across our platforms,” per the post. 

Related: Merchants Forced to Adapt as eCommerce Moves to Mobile

Meta recently held its inaugural Meta Commerce Day for Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA), a virtual event to help businesses learn how to tap the opportunities of discovery commerce. 

In a video as part of Meta’s blog post, Laurent Solly, Meta’s vice president of southern Europe, pointed to the potential of social commerce to help businesses grow.

He said Meta’s discovery engine is always being “fueled” with privacy-enhancing technologies, a supercomputer powered by artificial intelligence, dynamic ads, collaborative ads, and more.

See also: Report: Consumers Spend, Shop More Online With Brands That Deliver the Personal Touch

In a PYMNTS study earlier this month — “Relationship Commerce: Building Long-Term Brand Engagement” — 90% of respondents said they were likely to buy more from brands they felt understood their buying preferences. 

The same study showed that 79% of consumers have a commerce relationship with the brands they purchase from — membership, retail subscription or loyalty program — and 17% said they have all three types.