Selling on social media? Build your online storefront using this app

Social commerce is showing no signs of slowing down and it’s easy to understand why. It makes a lot of sense for entrepreneurs, especially beginners, for at least two reasons. First, it’s free, so you don’t need to invest in an ecommerce site or join online marketplaces that take a cut in your profits. Second, it gives you wide reach particularly in a country like the Philippines, which is often touted as the social media capital of the world.

Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, you name it – there are lot of social networks merchants can leverage in marketing and selling their products while boosting their overall online presence. But we can’t deny that, for those lacking human resources, it can be daunting and tedious. Posting one product on multiple social media accounts is time consuming, even more so when customer inquiries start pouring in on each of those accounts.

Managing payment gateways is another challenge. How do you get notified when a payment for your product has been made? Most small merchants do it the traditional way: manually. They coordinate with customers through various channels: text messaging, calls, or email. It can get unwieldy.

Philippine startup PocketMarket wants to simplify all that through its social commerce platform.

“We noticed that there were a lot of merchants selling through Facebook and Instagram, yet they use SMS and email to answer inquiries, get orders, and confirm payments. So it came to us to create an app that will help them promote on different social networks, and enable them to engage with buyers via instant messaging,” says Paulo del Puerto, one of PocketMarket’s founders.

A virtual store

PocketMarket has a free iOS app and a web version that merchants can use to set up their online storefronts.

Essentially, merchants can do five key things on PocketMarket: manage their social media posts, reply to inquiries, receive orders, send invoices, and accept payments.

Here’s how it all works: sign up, upload a photo of your product with details such as price, and choose where you want it posted – Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or all three at the same time. Your post will contain a link generated by PocketMarket that will redirect your customers to the product page.

On the product page is a built-in chat box, which your buyers can use to inquire about the product and communicate with you. Buyers don’t need to use the app when transacting; any browser will do.

Merchants’ very first posts using PocketMarket will generate storefronts and their very own URLs. Here’s an example: https://www.pocketmarket.com/uddo. As merchants upload more products on their social media accounts using PocketMarket, their storefronts are automatically populated.

In terms of payments, accepting through Pocketmarket is just an option, not a requirement. If it’s through the app, buyers have different modes to choose from such as banks, department stores, convenience stores, or even Bitcoin. This is helpful in bringing merchants’ businesses nationwide given that the Philippines has one of the lowest credit card penetration rates in Asia-Pacific. PocketMarket charges a minimal fee of five percent of the transaction amount, versus up to 20 percent on ecommerce sites.