The Future of AI Shopping
VML's new Unlock whitepaper reveals how agentic AI like Amazon Rufus is redefining digital shopping and lays out the steps to win in conversational commerce
Unlock Social Commerce Success
With social commerce now a $2 trillion market, our Unlock whitepaper shows how enterprise brands can build systems that sell
The colossal $2 trillion global social commerce market is no longer an experiment – but a critical mainstream sales channel.
With 5.4 billion social users and over 50% already making in-app purchases, this dynamic market is expanding 2.3x faster than digital commerce overall. In mature markets, social already accounts for 6-7% of ecommerce revenue.
For enterprise brands, the immense social commerce opportunity demands immediate action.
Our exclusive whitepaper, “Shrinking the Distance From Discovery to Purchase to Make Social Commerce Work,” offers practical steps and a proven strategy for enterprise brands to generate social commerce success in weeks, not months.
The whitepaper showcases several client success stories illustrating how VML and Shopify partner to drive social selling wins. It also details the innovative VML × Shopify Social Commerce Accelerator – our sprint-based program that seamlessly integrates diverse social platforms, creators, engaging content and streamlined checkout into a unified, governed operating model and a single comprehensive view of growth for your enterprise.
Download "Shrinking the Distance From Discovery to Purchase to Make Social Commerce Work" here:
Where success stalls
While social media offers an accelerated path from discovery to purchase – through shoppable content, native checkout, creator recommendations, and live commerce – the reality for enterprise brands is often fraught with complexity. The fragmented social landscape presents distinct challenges: each platform such as Facebook, Instagram, TikTok Shop, YouTube, Pinterest and others possess unique audiences, trust dynamics and purchasing behaviors.
With compliance demands, complex product catalogs, and siloed data that makes confident optimization nearly impossible, obstacles to navigate also include:
- Variable checkout trust: Some audiences embrace in-app checkout, others abandon it. Defaulting to one path costs you both groups.
- Brittle product feeds and tracking: Sparse reviews, inconsistent tagging and unreliable attribution create doubt – internally and at the point of purchase.
- Creator programs without direction: Influencer spend without SKU-level tracking and clear intent frameworks burns budget and obscures what actually converts.
The result is significant social commerce potential undermined by critical execution gaps and lack of enterprise-grade solutions.
Ignite your social commerce engine
VML and Shopify deliver a unified, enterprise-scale social commerce solution that seamlessly integrates advanced technology, robust data analytics, and human-centered design to power your social commerce engine. This approach connects diverse content formats, flexible checkout options, high-impact creators, and actionable data to accelerate your social selling performance:
- Shoppable content at scale: Systematize product tagging across short-form video, reels, and pins. Use drops, exclusives, and bundles to create urgency without eroding brand trust – then templatize for replicable speed.
- Checkout your way: Deploy in-app checkout where trust is already high – TikTok Shop, Instagram. Where your audience prefers brand-controlled flows, use near-native hosted checkout via Shopify for seamless handoff and clean attribution.
- Creators and affiliates that move product: Build programs around the three C's of intent: Content, Community, Commerce. Define roles clearly, set compensation tied to performance, and instrument every partnership with SKU-level tracking.
- Livestreams that convert: Design a run-of-show that educates and entertains simultaneously – clear CTAs, live inventory cues, real-time objection handling. We manage talent, scripts, and production so every broadcast is a sales event.
- Data and trust as foundations: Shopify's unified data model brings together product, order, and customer data into a single source of truth. Visible reviews, transparent stock signals, and clear service expectations remove friction at the last click.
- Results enterprise leaders expect: Faster go-live on Meta and TikTok Shop. Higher add-to-cart rates. Lower customer acquisition costs through creator performance loops. Unified data that makes optimization obvious, not speculative.
VML helps global enterprises navigate the complexity of social commerce and unlock growth by integrating technology, data, and human-centered design across core functions.
Let's talk
For enterprise brands, the time is now to capture the massive untapped potential of social commerce. Share your brand category, target markets, and strategic ambitions with us and VML will provide a precise roadmap – pinpointing your most significant social commerce opportunities and demonstrating our rapid path to achieving them.
Get in touch for a complimentary social commerce landscape session. We’ll walk you through the path from discovery to purchase in the changing social commerce landscape for your sector.
Answers to your social commerce selling questions
Social commerce is the integration of e-commerce directly within social media platforms, allowing users to discover, evaluate and purchase products without leaving the app. By 2026, it has become a $2 trillion market, expanding 2.3x faster than digital commerce overall, with 5.4 billion social users and over half already buying in-app. For enterprises, it's a critical growth channel because it shrinks the distance from discovery to purchase, leveraging daily social engagement to drive significant revenue (6-7% of e-commerce revenue in mature markets).
Enterprises often encounter challenges such as fragmented platforms, variable checkout trust, and operational gaps that slow adoption. VML helps navigate this complexity by integrating technology, data, and human-centered design across core functions. VML's approach involves systematizing shoppable content, choosing optimal checkout paths (in-app vs. brand-controlled), activating creators and affiliates, running converting livestreams, and wiring data for confident optimization, providing a practical path to make social sell efficiently.
- Shoppable content at scale: Systematizing product tagging across short-form videos and reels, using drops and exclusives to create urgency.
- Checkout your way: Offering in-app checkout where trust is high (e.g., TikTok Shop), or near-native hosted checkout via Shopify for brand-controlled experiences.
- Creators and affiliates that move product: Building programs around content, community, and commerce to ensure natural, performing partnerships.
- Livestreams that convert: Designing shows with clear CTAs, inventory cues, and real-time objection handling to educate and entertain.
- Data and trust as foundations: Unifying product, order, and customer data through platforms like Shopify for reliable attribution and optimization, and baking trust into the experience with visible reviews and transparent stock signals.
The VML x Shopify Social Commerce Accelerator is a sprint-based program designed to take brands from audit to live social commerce in weeks, not months. It connects platforms, creators, content, and checkout into a governed operating model, with performance data flowing back into Shopify for a single, unified view of growth. This accelerator provides speed to launch, clarity in data, and creative that entertains while selling, enabling brands to scale with confidence, control, and measurable impact.
Enterprises can take five immediate actions:
- Audit and prioritize buyer conversion: Identify 1-2 platforms and segments with high near-term potential, benchmarking competitors.
- Stand up a shoppable content system: Clean product feeds, standardize tagging, and create modular content templates for various formats.
- Choose the right checkout path by audience: Implement in-app checkout where trust is high, or near-native Shopify-hosted checkout for brand preference.
- Build a performance-led creator/affiliate program: Define roles by intent, set compensation, and instrument SKU-level tracking.
- Pilot livestream shopping with a conversion run-of-show: Align talent, scripts, CTAs, and inventory cues, then test and iterate based on data.
