Social Commerce Statistics for 2018 Prove it’s a Click-and-Buy Fascination

Today, people do just about everything on social media.

The modern consumer uses social media to date, play games, chat, and even shop.

Over the last few years, social networks like Facebook, Twitter, Polyvore, LinkedIn, Pinterest and Instagram have become some of the most popular ecommerce marketplaces on the web, and research shows that consumers are turning to these platforms more and more frequently when it comes time to make ecommerce purchases.

As social media sites continue to expand their purchasing opportunities for brands, social commerce keeps opening up and providing some exciting options for ecommerce brands.

Wondering how vital social commerce is for 2018? Here are some stats to showcase the place of social commerce in the overall ecommerce environment:

87% of customers say social media has helped them make a purchasing decision in the past.
25% of consumers look to social networks for advice when they go clothing shopping.
90% of people who follow a brand via social media will try to reach out to said brand.
50% of customers say that customer service on social media has made it easier to ask questions and have their issues resolved online.
In 2017, social networks saw $41 billion in advertising revenue – Facebook alone claimed $10.14 billion of this.
The average customer spends $1.8K on shopping annually.
Instagram offers the highest average order value on the web, with standard customers spending about $65 per purchase on items through the app.
Favorable product reviews on social media can bump a product’s price by about 9.5%, and more than 71% of consumers change their perception of a brand after they see a positive response to social media reviews.
1% of social shoppers are between 25-34 years old.
Facebook offers a 6.21% market share and a 0.77% conversion rate.
The top 500 online retailers earned $6.5 billion from social commerce in 2017.
Smartwatches, video doorbells, facial masks, and phone cases are some of the top-selling products on social media.
67% of Millennials would rather shop online than go to a physical store.

These social commerce statistics for 2018 showcase the size of social commerce, and go a long way toward underlining how vital this shopping tactic is for retailers in the modern world.

Inspired by the social commerce statistics above? Here are some actionable tips to improve your social commerce dealings and help your store drive results:

1. Start by Listing Products on Facebook

If you haven’t already started making products available on Facebook, you’re missing out. For social commerce newbies and experienced marketers alike, Facebook is the most logical place to start.

Thanks to the fact that it has the largest market share and one of the largest average order values on the web, it’s also one of the most valuable. Today, about 50% of social media users report having purchased something through Facebook.

With this in mind, start listing products on your Facebook page. This makes it easy for consumers to shop via your link and enjoy your offerings through their favorite social site.

2. Make Retention a Part of Your Strategy

While social commerce presents a large swath of benefits for modern brands, this is only true if it’s used correctly.

Retention is one of the benefits you should be paying close attention to. While many marketers believe social commerce should be all about external action, the fact of the matter is that retention must be a prime part of your strategy.

In other words, the longer you can keep users on your site, the more revenue you stand to make. While there are many ways to do this, setting up a retention chain is the most effective. Be sure that you’re using things like email lists, blogs, and push notifications to keep customers in the loop and keep them moving through your sales channel.

Want to give your social media materials a larger reach? Take a lesson from sites like Dropbox, which have made sharing an essential part of their overall approach to social commerce. Look at it this way: you will never be able to conduct enough social promotion to meet or exceed the results of a company that utilizes audience promotion.

You’d be better off incentivizing your customers to share your offers. This helps drive sales (after all, customers are trusted advocates, and their recommendations come off as more trustworthy than yours) and can increase the reach of your products.

4. Optimize for Mobile

As is true for all things right now, you need to optimize your mobile presence if you want it to perform well in the world of social commerce.

There are more mobile-only web users today than ever before, and 80% of Facebook’s revenue currently comes from mobile users.

With this in mind, optimize your mobile shopping experience to speak to these users. This includes everything from your shopping storefront (which should be easy to navigate via mobile), payment processing, and email strategy. Don’t forget – 75% of emails that aren’t mobile-friendly go right to the trash bin.

5. Add “Buy” Pins

When it comes to social commerce customers, Pinterest users are some of the best. When you consider the fact that 93% of pinners have the intent to purchase as they shop the app, it’s clear that this platform is ideal for anyone who wants to expand their online store.

One easy way to harness the power of Pinterest is to add “Buy It” pins to your news feed. In addition to allowing customers to purchase your products without leaving the platform, “Buy” pins also have the potential to boost your sales hugely.

Take Madesmith, for example. Madesmith is a homemade goods store that boosted their sales by 7% through buyable pins.

While social commerce can feel like a slippery thing to master, these tips will help you get a handle on it. Simple tools like Buy Pins, integrations, and more only serve to help social media become a more powerful selling platform.

If you’ve been considering jumping aboard the social commerce train, there’s no time like the present to get it done! When you combine the forces of social media and ecommerce, everyone wins.

Need even more statistics about social commerce? Here’s a detailed infographic that gives you a complete breakdown for 2018.