Social Commerce Business Model Study

Driven by the fast evolution of the internet, innovative technologies andweb services, the user shifted from a passive information receiver to an activecontent releaser within the whole new revolution. Users were integrated intoexisting online shopping and matured from a simple buyer to a fullyintegrated content media distributor. Thus, a modern shop visitor canrecommend products, leave comments, rate vendors or publish them all. Thisrecent phenomenon, called social commerce, leads to more customersatisfaction, loyalty and consequently to more revenue for the businessowners. At the same time, there is a strong demand for innovative businessmodels and new technology functionalities.The strategies are just beginning to take shape; it is sustainable because ofthe various incentives given to consumer as they collaborate with othersregardless of their identity and location. Although some of the technologiesare still evolving with even the experts unsure what social commerce willmean, but the market and the investors confirm the economically expandingvalue of innovative user driven social commerce solutions. This paperpresents the results of an extended case study research on existing socialcommerce models. In the theoretical part of this thesis, following conceptsincluding the basic knowledge of Web1.0, Web2.0, SNS, E-commerceforms and development, and also the key point–social commerce will be covered. The key investigation will be focus on the business models andprofitability of the current social commerce platforms and their futureevolution.The conclusion will be certainly that social commerce is not thebusiness as usual. It will contain both social, content, marketing, sales,payment and mobile all together and integrate them into a smart commerceconcept. It will hit the size of30billion by itself and unlock the value of1.3tillion within3years. It will also have profound influence towards thefuture business model and moreover, change the structure of macro economyof global.