Shopline is expanding its commerce services platform for selling on social media to Europe.
The Singapore-headquartered firm has opened a European headquarters in London, adding that to its regional offices in Malaysia, Indonesia, Taiwan and Australia, Shopline said in a Wednesday (April 12) press release.
“Selling directly on social media has rewritten the eCommerce playbook on how brands are engaging with their customers,” Shopline UK General Manager Deepak Anand said in the release. “As a global talent hub, London is the perfect fit for Shopline to lead the transformation of European retail while enabling unique shopping experiences that are supporting our customer’s commerce vision.”
PYMNTS research has found that online sellers are looking to focus more specifically on social media channels over the next year.
In fact, 47.9% of online sellers intend to increase their reliance on social media channels such as Instagram or TikTok, according to “Online Sellers: The Future is Multichannel.”
As PYMNTS reported in December 2022, a social media presence is all but required in the current online retail space and many alternatives have become available with expanded eCommerce offerings.
Amazon joined its Big Tech cohorts in trying to capture the social commerce market in December when it unveiled Inspire, a feature on its app that lets customers browse a custom photo/video feed to find products.
Short-form video “is an incredibly useful medium of helping people discover and understand products,” Amazon Director of Shopping Oliver Messenger told The Wall Street Journal at the time.
Shopline has partnered with Meta, Google, TikTok and Amazon to provide merchants with an omnichannel shopping and advertising experience; has helped 500,000 brands scale their retail business; and has built a team of 2,000 employees worldwide, according to the press release.
With Wednesday’s opening of its office in London, the company aims to continue its global expansion and will roll out the Shopline UK platform for domestic and cross-border commerce in the coming months, the release said.
“Asia has pioneered a boom in selling on social alongside world-class supplier networks and extensive logistics infrastructure,” Shopline UK Head of Partnerships David Meakin said in the release. “This has driven the demand for a single platform that can effectively manage every customer touchpoint and we are thrilled to be able to provide our regional know-how with our local partner ecosystem.”
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