Conversational commerce has largely failed to live up to the hype in the US. The reason is not that we are still waiting for next-generation technology; rather, we’ve been viewing commerce too narrowly, as an individual experience.

The above statement comes from Connie Chan’s post on China is cashing in on group chats. While I completely agree that we have an individualistic view on commerce, I believe that this perspective is driven by a deeper societal divide that has existed for quite some time. 

Conversational Commerce

According to Mark Zuckerberg, one of the fastest growing areas of online communications are private messaging, ephemeral stories, and small groups. While group chats in the West are most often populated by our friends, China provides multiple examples of companies using group chats to facilitate deeper customer relationships and social commerce.

The difference between Western and Eastern conversational platforms is exemplified in how they establish trust with users. A lot of commonly used platforms in North America (e.g. Shopify, Amazon) emphasize their end-to-end encryption and hyper personalization toward the individual's experience. In China, there is a greater level of trust placed with the community. For example, Ctrip uses group chats between drivers, tour companies, spas and restaurants to share relevant information in a way that feels communal, rather than commercial.

Western Individualism vs. Eastern Collectivism 

It is my belief that the contrasting strategies used by platforms from the West vs. the East stems from the division between Western Individualism and Eastern Collectivism. 

Individualism is characterized as a concept that is centered around the autonomy of the individual, emotional independence, personal initiative, privacy, and the clear awareness of his/her “I”. It is coined with the notions of personal freedom, egoism, and that exalts the moral worth of an individual. 

This renders platforms like Whatsapp to be highly effective as the platform focuses on 1:1 encryption and ease of communication between individuals. 

On the other hand, Eastern collectivism is based on replacing the identity of the individual with the group identity. In Asian societies, there is no such value as human autonomy. The individual must submit to the opinion of the authority. In this environment, we tend to see emotional dependence, group solidarity, and the tendency to comply with the decision of the group.

This makes it extremely easy for platforms like Ctrip (trip planning), Lingochamp (learning new languages) and Pinduoduo (group buying) to tap into existing groups and simply remove the friction involved in reinforcing group solidarity. 

Conversational Commerce in North America 

Despite its widespread use, there’s still evidence of conversational commerce emerging within select Western communities. 

Chatbots 

There are over 20 billion messages are sent between people and businesses monthly on Messenger. An example of a business that is built off this feature is SnapTravel (based out of Toronto). The company  was one of the first to adopt conversational commerce, having built the first travel chatbot on Facebook Messenger before the Messenger SDK was officially released in April 2016. Three years later, SnapTravel has over 2.5 million users and $100 million in sales.

Slack 

There are a number of public and private communities that not only share relevant information but also sell tools to one another. The Demand Curve slack community is a great example of a community that focuses on marketers. While being an agency with a clear motive to get clients, Demand Curve has created a community where marketers can help one another. Subconsciously, Demand Curve has built a positive relationship with several marketers without having to manage individual conversations. 

I’ve also seen companies like Lambda School (a coding school that allows students to study for free under an income share agreement) create a private community for prospective students to help one another to get accepted. The community has created an environment where there is a lot of support and social pressure to work toward completing an examination that would be otherwise difficult to get through. The slack community has become a recruiting tool in and of itself without ever intending to be one.   

Forums

Forums, such as Reddit, Github or even Product Hunt, can help you find information, have interesting conversations or learn new concepts. Businesses have used forums to drive sales by posting relevant content, participating in ‘public’ dialogue, getting feedback from the broader community and having Ask Me Anything sessions. Product Hunt, in particular, is an interesting forum as it serves as a great place to get product feedback but also makes it incredibly easy to search and identify the best tools for almost any purpose.  

Conclusion

Conversational commerce is a channel that is here to stay. Given the differences between Western and Eastern societal constructs, it is unrealistic to expect that conversational (and social) commerce to look and feel the same across the world. 

For those still focused on building conversational commerce products in North America, I would pay attention to the behaviour of micro communities in North America (via tools like Slack, Reddit and Product Hunt), identify common friction points and build a solution that eliminates the friction involved in starting up and maintaining these micro communities that exist today.