Despite social media now accounting for nine percent of all marketing spending and continuing to spiral, the platforms still only lead to less than one percent of sales.
Powa Technologies has today promised to finally unlock the vast potential of social commerce, with its innovative PowaTag mobile commerce app enabling consumers to buy through social media in seconds with a single tap on their smartphone.
PowaTag gives shoppers the power to complete purchases anytime, anywhere using a variety of triggers such as listening to watermarks hidden in broadcast audio or scanning tags on anything from products to billboards. Sales are finalized in just three seconds using pre-entered payment and address information.
The latest integration will empower brands and retailers to offer direct sales to users on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest and LinkedIn, creating an entirely new sales channel with a reach of hundreds of millions around the world.
Posts and images can embed URLs that activate PowaTag with the item already set for purchase. Users who do not have PowaTag installed will be brought to the app download page before completing their sale.
A recent study by Duke University predicts social media spending will reach 21 percent within the next five years - growth of 128 percent from the current nine percent. Despite the spiraling spending, the research also found that only 15 percent of CMOs were able to quantify the impact of social media on their business. Further, a study from Monetate found that social channels had a sales conversation rate of just 0.71 percent last year.
Dan Wagner, eCommerce veteran and CEO and chairman of Powa Technologies, comments: "Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest and LinkedIn are an intrinsic part of every day life for hundreds of millions of people around the world, so it's no wonder social commerce has become the new Holy Grail in retail. When you consider that the average person in the UK now spends 12 percent of their time on social networking[3], the potential as a retail channel is simply astounding.
"But despite almost every retailer on the planet investing more money into social media, the truth is that the measurable direct return is still shockingly small. The introduction of PowaTag will finally allow retailers to seize the enormous opportunity of social commerce and enable them to achieve real, measurable sales from their social media presence, bringing their products directly to customers with the tap of a smartphone."
Social media is only the latest trigger for the app, joining QR codes, java script, iBeacons, NFC technology and audio tags embedded in both live and pre-recorded broadcast media. All sensitive user information is hosted separately by Powa on a secured PCI Level 1 compliant site and is not stored on the mobile device itself. More than 800 brands and retailers around the globe have so far signed up for PowaTag.
Dan Wagner adds: "While there have been some attempts at social commerce in the past, the difference here is that PowaTag is universal - whether its in-store, on a billboard, or on their wall or timeline consumers will be able to use PowaTag as the single go-to app for all their mobile commerce."