In a recent attempt to try out social commerce, German clothing retailer Ulla Popken reached more than 65,000 shoppers and saw high return-on-investment stats in 60 days. 

Ulla initiated the attempt to expand its online presence and seek revenue through social campaigns. Partnering with Social Annex, an enterprise social commerce platform, Ulla leveraged its engagement with its social customers to rope in new customers.

“In this commoditized consumer market with brand loyalty very difficult to come by, our customer Ulla Popken, a well established legacy German brand, has demonstrated that its possible to increase revenue while achieving double digits referral traffic growth through organic efforts, enabled by even the simplest of social commerce tools,” said Akbar Jaffer, vice president of marketing and products at Social Annex. “We at Social Annex are very proud of the success of Ulla Popken in just two months, and this is just the beginning.”

Positive results
Using Social Annex’s Share and Save tool, Ulla Popken offered shoppers 20 percent off for sharing on Twitter, Facebook or email. Shoppers were also offered a chance to win a $250 gift card in exchange for liking Ulla Popken on Facebook.

When shoppers shared with Share and Save or entered for a chance to win through the Faebook Like-Gated contest, their social data was pulled from social APIs, such as Facebook’s Open Graph and imported into Ulla Popken’s Social Annex dashboard.

In 60 days, Ulla reached 65,000 people and generated more than $16,000 in incremental revenue. Share and Save drew highly qualified peer referrals, which had more than a 17 percent conversion rate.

Through this technology, Ulla is using knowledge of which social actions are most preferred by its shoppers and which ones drive the most revenue. This information helps to inform Ulla and evolve its social commerce strategy. Social Annex also believes that its tactics are further informed by reports that identify the most valuable brand advocates and reveal the trending likes and interests of shoppers.

Up and coming
A number of brands are tapping social commerce to take their social belongings into a realm of revenue.

For example, mall retailer Charlotte Russe recently tried out Curalate’s Like2Buy mcommerce solution and saw a 60 percent click-through rate from the Like2Buy page to product pages.

From the back end, Charlotte Russe’s marketing team has easily integrated the Like2Buy tool in its Curalate-powered posting and scheduling system used for its Instagram account. A easy transition into social commerce, the combination of using Instagram and a seamless solution system has given Charlotte Russe a new route for revenue (see story).

Target and Nordstrom also recently bet the enthusiasm of Instagram users would translate to sales by making it easy to purchase products on display on the retailers’ social network profiles.

Consumers have been known to spend hours scouring Instagram for images of the exact product they want. Now, these users are able to purchase items from brands participating in the program with just a few clicks (see story).

“Social commerce is quickly gaining traction, becoming a core strategy for retailers and brands because of its cost effective nature,” Mr. Jaffer said. “With the maturation of social landscapes such as Instagram, Pinterest and Facebook and the growth of mobile shopping with better devices and user experience, social commerce has a solid launch pad for wide scale adoption by brands, retailers and consumers.

“It is quickly becoming an accepted part of the normal shopping and social experience,” he said.

Final Take
Caitlyn Bohannon is an editorial assistant on Mobile Commerce Daily, New York