Whilst retail store design remains important for retailers. There are, however, some interesting new developments taking shape in the market. The clothing retailer TopShelf Style, a San Fransico based retailer, is a recent example of social media selling in action. TopShelf utilizes Soldsie, which turns your Instagram account into a social storefront and increase traffic, engagement and sales. Since you can't embed links in Instagram, it's been very difficult to offer products to your Instagram followers. Soldsie makes selling directly to your Instagram followers possible. The solution allows the retailer to implement comment selling on Instagram.

Whenever TopShelf puts something up for sale on Instagram, customers who want to buy it simply need to comment “sold” together with their email address. Soldsie then generates an invoice and sends it to the shopper, so they can complete the transaction.

Apart from Instagram, no other social network has been able to dominate shopping online. However, that doesn't mean social media companies will stop trying. In 2015, Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest released buy buttons and while none of them gained widespread acceptance, we expect social networks to continue investing in social commerce.

We also expect social networks users will continue using the medium to discover and talk about products, so perhaps this is one reason why retailers should keep investing in their social media initiatives.

Why not call and talk to us about your retail formats, on-line digital channels and social media requirement.