The 1990s were an era of many technological advances. One of the biggest things that happened was the internet becoming more commercial. This moment paved the way for changes in almost every industry, and commerce was one of the most influenced sectors. It was a period when hundreds of electronic commerce (ecommerce) platforms were created, which brought many benefits to companies as well as to their customers worldwide. For instance, one of those platforms is Amazon, which is still one of the giants more than 20 years after it was launched. It’s hard for a single day to go by without us coming across some kind of special Amazon deal on the Internet, and this is partly due to the power of social commerce. At the start of the millennium, another thing shocked the world of commerce – the introduction of social networks. Companies realised there was a great opportunity to advertise their products to the “online audience” of millions of people worldwide, and took that chance. This lead to the creation of what is known as social commerce. The main goal of a business is to increase sales, and the influence that they can achieve on potential customers through social media is huge. Thousands of companies use social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram to bring products and services closer to the customers from every part of the world, thus making these social networks the biggest advertisement platform. An important part of social commerce is word of mouth recommendations. It is one of the best characteristics that social commerce has, since it is an unpaid form of promotion in which customers give opinions on a certain product via everyday communication. It is also one of the most credible forms of advertising since no one wants to put reputation on the line by referring a bad product. The disadvantage of word of mouth is not having a precise number of how many potential customers saw or heard about a product. Another major part of social commerce are reviews. More and more companies give customers the opportunity to write a review of a product which later has an effect on potential customers, as it gives them a sense of trust and makes them comfortable. We can conclude that both the customers and the service or product suppliers are the ones who are creating the value of a product. The content about products that the users of social platforms create and the paid ads by marketers are the basics of how social commerce works. URL: https://www.16best.net/blog/social-networks-and-their-importance-in-ecommerce-gateways/