Daniel Latev, head of Non-Store Retailing at Euromonitor, explains that “beauty brands are gaining increasing prominence on social media; however these are still behind some other industries, especially fashion-led industries such as apparel, where brands are more active.”
“For Beauty brands to gain more benefit out of social networks they need to embrace the key aspects of social media – sharing of information and actively engaging with users,” he told CosmeticsDesign-Europe.com.
App limitations
PayPal launched its new ‘Send Money’ Facebook application which will enable the 800 million Facebook users to send payments to their friends or businesses via the social networking website or cash-filled e-cards, despite the social networking giant not fully supporting the app.
Latev believes this will limit the impact that the application on Facebook will have at present as it still does not integrate with Facebook’s own payment system.
“In this respect the app would serve more as an additional channel for users to interact with PayPal, with the added benefit of being able to send digital cards together with cash to their friends. The method of sending money through the app is still not that vastly different from what PayPal already offers through its website,” he explained.
Social commerce still relatively small
Although there are other ways to make a payment with PayPal through Facebook the Send Money app is the first peer-to-peer payment system pairing up the two entities directly reinforcing the growing link between social media and e-commerce.
However, Latev warned that social commerce is still a relatively small aspect of overall internet sales, despite the fact that there are already some transactional Facebook pages through which the consumer can purchase certain items.
“A majority of the so-called Facebook outlets are purely a separate store front located within Facebook environment and offer very limited social functionality,” said Latev.
“While direct sales through Facebook are still limited, social networks are having an impact on companies and brands, especially those which have a more integrated approach towards social media,” he added.