Have you ever considered adding social logins to your eCommerce blog? Think about the way that you go about using your favorite websites on a daily basis. How often have you remembered using a website in the past, known that you had an account with them, but ultimately became fed up with trying to remember your information, and ended up just creating a new account? Did you know that Amazon recently found that nearly 45% of its customers actually had multiple accounts? Sounds like a bit of a users nightmare – doesn’t it?
With social networks so ingrained into society today, there are many things that need to be taken into account when you are looking at changing something as large as your account and purchasing system. In many instances, it calls for a complete system overhaul. Of course, you need to make sure that you account for all of the changes that will be implemented, or perhaps tack a social login onto an existing email based system. Either way – there are many more benefits that come with a social login in the eyes of a user that can help you to provide a better overall user experience.
Makes Registration Easier
One thing that needs to be taken into consideration when you are looking at adding a social login to your website is the fact that it is going to make the registration process much easier for your users overall. In fact, you might find a lot of your already existing users simply dumping their email login and going for a swifter, click-to-connect style that the social logins provide. There are many things that need to be done in order to make sure that you are able to simplify the registration process. The easier that you can make registration for your website, the more likely you are to make sales, improving upon your return on investment with a small but simple addition.
Simple Logins
Another huge benefit of social logins and eCommerce is the fact that it makes logging in as simple as could be. Users are able to connect to your website, and login to their account directly with a single click of the button, and then accepting the login through Facebook. This can also help you to generate into action between your users, and even be used as a marketing tool and a variety of different aspects. By allowing users to log in through their Facebook account, not only are you making the logging in easy, you can also share information about what their friends like, and show how they have interacted in various ways on your website.
Easy Peer Reviews
Did you know that Facebook data can be used to provide peer reviews and peer support? Imagine your users constantly being able to see which items you have for sale hat their friends have already purchased or are interested in. For instance if your user were interested in purchasing a videogame, social logins and the use of the open graph could allow them to see which of their friends like the game on Facebook, and therefore are likely to own the game, may help them to make a decision to purchase it. There are many ways in which data like this can be implemented on your website in order to better your marketing efforts. Make sure that you utilize the social lock-in and all open graph data that Facebook makes available in order to improve your marketing to the best of your ability.
Entice Reviews
Have you ever gone to leave a review on a product that you purchase, only to find that acquires a lock in order to do so? What if you could login with the click of a button, and automatically leave a review on that product via your social networking account? Wouldn’t that make you much more likely to leave a review about a product that you have purchased? In the same way that a social login will help users login to make purchases, will also make them much more likely to leave reviews. Enticing users to leave reviews helps the website to look active, shows that other individuals have successfully purchased items from them, and can help new users trust in your website from the get-go.
Creates Discussion
Whether the discussion is a product review or a comment on a blog post, you need to make sure that you are able to create discussion in a variety of different ways on your website. You need to make sure that you are able to give your customers as many ways as possible to participate in your website. T his will help you to appear more active, and also allow your users to get their opinion heard more easily.
Potential Downsides
Although there are many benefits to installing social logins on your ecommerce website, there are also some potential downsides that need to be considered. It will provide you with certain limitations, and give you less control over certain aspects of your account making registration process. This, along with other downsides can make it a difficult decision to make for some businesses.
Testing Is Tough
The implementation of the social logins can make A/B split testing a bit tougher than you would presume. There is no seamless way to go back and forth and determine whether or not it is actually improving your registration rate. You can make comparisons to before and after, but in general split testing will be much more difficult.
Accidental Authentication
One thing that needs to be taken into account is that social logins for eCommerce website can often cause accidental authentication. This is a big deal because accidental authentication can mean that a user auto-authenticates and then makes a purchase on another individual’s account. This can lead to charge-backs, returns, and in general a bad customer experience for some. You need to take the necessary steps to limit accidental authentication when you can.