Social commerce is changing the buying journey

Social commerce compresses the path from inspiration to purchase.

Sanae Murschel’s session at DELIVER Europe 2026 focused on how platforms such as TikTok, Instagram and Snapchat are changing customer behaviour in France. Social media is no longer only a place for entertainment or product discovery. It is becoming part of the shopping journey itself, where customers can discover, evaluate and buy without leaving the platform.

This makes social commerce more emotional and immediate than traditional ecommerce. A product can gain momentum through a creator, a video or a live stream, turning attention into demand almost instantly.

France is entering a new phase of ecommerce

The session positioned social commerce within a wider French ecommerce market that continues to evolve.

Online shopping has become part of everyday consumer behaviour, while the market is also being reshaped by large marketplaces, Chinese ecommerce players, C2C platforms and younger audiences who spend significant time on social apps.

For brands, this creates a new route to reach consumers, especially younger shoppers. But it also introduces new operational pressure because demand can become less predictable and more event-driven.

Delivery becomes part of trust

Social commerce depends heavily on confidence.

Customers may be inspired to buy quickly, but barriers remain. Concerns around scams, trust, delivery delays, returns and product expectations can slow adoption. Once the purchase is made, the customer experience moves quickly from the social platform to the delivery journey.

That makes final mile performance central to social commerce growth. If delivery is slow, unclear or unreliable, it can damage both the seller’s reputation and the customer’s confidence in the channel.

Sellers need national reach and flexible logistics

The session highlighted that social commerce sellers may be geographically concentrated, while buyers are spread across the whole country.

This creates a clear logistics requirement: sellers need delivery partners that can reach customers everywhere, including rural and less densely populated areas. They also need services that can support drop-off, pickup, returns and international expansion as volumes grow.

For smaller sellers, access to distribution centres and post offices can create a practical route into nationwide delivery. For larger sellers, scalable pickup and export capabilities become more important.

What this means for the DELIVER community

For retailers and brands, social commerce should not be treated only as a marketing opportunity.

It changes the rhythm of demand, the role of creators and the expectations placed on delivery. The brands that scale successfully will need to combine content, platform presence and fulfilment capability.

For logistics providers, the opportunity is to support sellers with trusted delivery infrastructure, strong returns capabilities and nationwide reach. As social commerce grows, final mile reliability will become one of the foundations that determines whether customers buy once — or come back again.