The next social media trend : flash sales

First it was all about group buying and now, it seems, social commerce is all about flash sales. Flash sales work by offering customers an incredible offer for a very short time, before the offer expires for good. Though they are not a new concept on their own, as a social media mechanic they are growing in popularity as a new way to engage fans and encourage a quick sale. The benefit for brands is clear. Fans are incentivised to buy something while they can. One click and it could be gone – it’s a sales method that lends itself perfectly to the immediacy of social media and it’s a next stage in social commerce that sees brands using established sales methods, updated for the 21st century.

Get there quickly

It’s easy to see the concept of flash sales heading the same way as group buying, with the risk being that there is consumer fatigue and an increasingly crowded marketplace. Brands have an opportunity now to effect a flash sale in a new way and provide entertainment to their customers. But you need to get in there quick if you hope to stand out from the crowd. ZDnet report that visits to online flash sale sites have increased by over 100% in July this year, compared to July 2010. Consumers are quickly getting wise to the fact that if they have their wits about them, they will rarely have to pay full price for anything, if they use the right social sites and follow brands through social sites. But with this comes a risk. The same article highlights the fact that 52% of online consumers in the U.S. claimed they were starting to get overwhelmed by the amount of emails they are receiving from deals/discount sites.

For this reason alone, brands should begin looking at how they can offer flash sales through their own sites/social platforms, instead of being one of a number of brands contained within a broader flash sale site. While the technology behind this might sound complex, Facebook store applications are beginning to add this functionality themselves. SortPrice – a Facebook store plugin, recently added the option to allow brands to add a flash sale to their Facebook Page. This could represent the single biggest opportunity for brands – making the commerce experience for users different and entertaining, while making it a more social process, using Facebook functionality such as sharing or messaging, to allow fans to tell their friends about the offer.

Case Study : Saks

Showing how this can work from a brand-centric approach as opposed to working with a flash sale aggregator, Saks have recently invested in a flash sale site that is proving successful for their customers. The site is due to launch next week and it will offer customers a completely new way to shop within the Saks site :

The flash sale site is an impressive launch from Saks, as they will offer multiple flash sales throughout the day, making it a major part of the online shopping experience on the site, as opposed to being something more gimmicky. The fact that such a large retailer is getting behind flash sales in such a big way shows the potential here, but interestingly, it shows how it can fit as a social shopping mechanic for luxury brands. When it comes to social media, luxury brands have to approach it carefully, striking a balance between making the brand accessible, but somewhat exclusive and aspirational. While group buying may not necessarily have fit with this approach, flash sales are a concept that can be applied to luxury brands perfectly.

Opportunities on Facebook

The concept of a flash sale lends itself perfectly to Facebook, as an updated way of running the sale via app alerts as opposed to email, and the same concept can also be applied to Twitter. When consumers shop on Facebook, there is an expectation that you want something more out of the experience than you would get on a normal commerce or brand site. F-commerce requires a different approach, that utilise social technologies as an intrinsic part of the transaction, using it to do business completely differently. Instead of implementing a flash sale as you would through a website, think about the ability to offer personalised flash sales based on your fans’ interests or even the possibility of allowing people to create their own flash sales. Imagine if you could create a private flash sale for your friends that allowed you to get a single product at a completely different price than anyone else? If flash sales are to really take off for brands and reach their full potential, there are many opportunities to bring them up to date through social technology and provide an experience for your customers that they can’t get anywhere else.