Social Shopping a year on…

Last year I wrote about ‘The Art of Social Shopping’; as it’s been a year I thought I would look at how far or not so far social shopping has come. Like a lot in the digital world I did think we would be using social shopping pretty quickly, however I’m now looking into whether this has actually caught on as quickly as I anticipated.

Quick overview

Our favourite social media platforms added ‘buy buttons’ to their sites for retailers to take advantage of the increasing number of users. Facebook launched its ‘Buy Button’ allowing users to shop from the social platform without leaving; Pinterest launched Buyable Pins for iOS users so you could purchase blue tagged products; Instagram also has a ‘Shop Now’ button which takes you outside the app; and Twitter has been using #AmazonCart which takes you to Tweeted products sold on Amazon.

Twitter – Drive brand conversation with the new Instant Unlock Card

What’s happened since?

Marin Global Online Advertising Index analysed data from around the world. They looked at social media advertising and the effect it has on consumer shopping habits. It showed that 95% of social share clicks came from mobile devices which drove 90% of spending, again from mobile devices, against desktop.

Reviewing 2015 social commerce, Global Web Index found that 37% of social media users follow their favourite brands on social media, 30% used these platforms to research purchases, however only 10% said that ‘Buy Buttons’ would make them more likely to purchase a product.

People are reacting to advertisements on their social media platforms, despite initial hesitation, and we can attribute sales from traffic which started on social media platforms. However using ‘buy it buttons’ haven’t gained the same amount of interest. Again data from Global Web Index showed that only 9% of Facebook users were interested in their buy buttons, followed by 12% for Twitter’s options and 13% for Pinterest and finally 14% for Instagram.

The option to buy straight from our favourite social media platforms is still relatively new and not the only developments companies work on. Social media has changed, but its seems to have changed in my opinion into a game of one-upmanship or basically copying other platforms *see Instagram Snapchat, sorry Stories feature.

So we may see improvements in take up, but it may take a while for people to start to use these buttons. Figures suggest in general social media is a great way to drive traffic and increase sales, so I don’t think it’s going to be a fad and instead something these platforms will continue to develop.