Associated resources:
- Help article to setup and manage social commerce: Commerce dashboard
What is Social Commerce?#
An intersection of e-commerce and social media, where (social) media networks are used to promote and sell products directly to consumers. Networks setup on the MainCross system can utilize the e-commerce feature to enable businesses and individuals to showcase their products, interact with potential customers, and facilitate transactions within the platform.
Getting started#
Its really easy to start selling products, both goods and services, natively on the MainCross platform. No third party solution or integration is required. You only need to drop in the keys from your choice of Payment Gateway (Stripe or Razorpay currently supported). MainCross charges 0 sales commissions, and payments flow directly from customer to PG to your associated bank account.
This feature is available on paid plans only.
Be up and running in 4 steps:
- Decide and configure the product classification
- Add products with pricing to the catalog
- Enable access to the marketplace (which shows all the products)
- Create collections and feature them on Featured Pages (and Home page)
- If you want to sell (as opposed to just listing products) then configure the payment gateway
Products are available for purchase at a network level in the Marketplace, and at a channel level in Channel Shopfronts.
Currently MainCross natively supports selling products via a robust straightforward flow (1-click direct purchase) without standard ecommerce mechanisms, ie no "add-to-cart", "checkout".
A full fledged social commerce solution from our strategic partner, Shoptype, Inc, is pre-integrated. It only needs to be turned on, and supports a complete ecommerce experience, with support for a multi-vendor marketplace with add-to-cart, checkout, shipping and payment. If the MC Commerce does not serve your purpose, you may explore the Shoptype Commerce solution.
Entities involved#
E-commerce Operator
We use the term "E-commerce Operator" to mean any entity which is responsible for running and managing a Storefront or Marketplace, and is the legal entity which is connected to the Payment Gateway used for collecting funds from the customer.
In the context of MainCross: E-commerce Operators are nothing else but the Network or Channel Operators themselves.
Vendor / merchant / seller
While there are endless esoteric definitions and fine grained differences between all these terms, they are mostly meaningless in our context. We use the term "Seller" to mean any entity which sells goods or services. Note that the terms "vendor" and "merchant" have been deprecated.
Manufacturer / Brand
We use the term "Manufacturer" to refer to the entity which has manufactured or produced the product or is the brand owner and may be responsible for the product quality, warranty, after-sales service etc.
Configurations#
Single-operator network with Single-seller Marketplace
In the simplest case, the Network Operator directly sells its products via the Marketplace. The Network Operator creates and manages all its products in the Catalog.
Funds flow from customers directly to the Manufacturer / Seller / Operator - which are all the same.
Example - A Network Site that is being operated by a brand, say a natural stone supplier. In this case, all the products are manufactured by the company, sold by the company on their own website running on a MainCross instance.
Single-operator network with Multi-seller Marketplace
In this case, multiple sellers sell via the marketplace. Individual sellers don't have access to the admin dashboard of the Network Site and the Network Operator has to create and manage all the products (coming from individual sellers) in the Catalog.
Funds flow from customers to the Network Operator, who has to then disburse funds to each seller based on proportion of sales.
Example - A Network Site that is being operated by a community platform. The operator allows multiple sellers to sell via the marketplace.
Multi-operator network with Multi-seller Marketplace (and single-seller Shopfronts)
If a network has been configured as a multi-operator network, Channel Operators can setup Shopfronts on their channels, which can only be single-seller, ie Channel Operator = Seller. Channel Operators have access to the admin dashboard for their Channel and can create and manage all their products themselves. These products are linked to that Channel, and the Seller is the Channel Operator.
In this case, multiple sellers sell via the marketplace AND additionally, each seller sells via their dedicated Shopfront on their channel.
Funds may flow in 2 ways:
Channel Payment Gateway configured: If the Channel Operator has configured their own payment gateway, then funds will flow from customers to the Channel Operator for products that are linked to their Channel.
Network Payment gateway configured: In all other cases, as usual, funds flow from customers to the Network Operator, who has to then disburse funds to each Channel Operator or Seller based on proportion of sales.
Solution components#
Read the important dedicated article which defines all the components (hello jargon!) that makes up the MC commerce solution - Store, Marketplace, Shopfront, Classification, Search, Sorting, Collections, Product definition, Embeds, etc.
