Consumers Are Influenced by Brands on Social

More brands are using social platforms like Pinterest and Instagram to encourage consumers to not only discover new products, but also buy them. And that seems to be paying off, according to a July 2019 study from rating and review marketing company Yotpo.

Unsurprisingly, younger consumers are more likely to take to social commerce. More than 55% of Gen Z US internet users—who do half of their fashion shopping online—said their most recent fashion purchases were inspired by social media browsing. And nearly as many millennials said the same.

While their older cohorts may have not been as enthused, a significant number of Gen Xers (38.1%) and baby boomers (27.5%) said they’ve also recently made a fashion purchase after being inspired on social.

An August 2019 survey conducted by Bizrate Insights revealed that more than a third of US consumers had purchased products through social media. Among the 66% who had not engaged in social commerce, 27% said they're at least somewhat interested in using it in the future. And once again, younger consumers were more interested in shopping via social media than their older counterparts.

“Discovery is what makes social shopping fun and engaging, and brands understandably want to convert that excitement into action,” said eMarketer principal analyst Andrew Lipsman in our “Social Commerce 2019” report, which published earlier this year. “Until recently, consumers hadn’t been sufficiently primed to take that final step toward purchase, and brands didn’t have the tools or strategies needed to help them get there. With social platforms finally evolving their experiences to be more conducive to shopping behavior, social commerce is now hitting its stride.”

For the most part, the bulk of social commerce in the US takes place on Facebook and Instagram. This year, we forecast that 86.8% of US marketers will use Facebook for social media marketing and 73.2% will use Instagram.

“While the usage of Pinterest and Snapchat are considerably lower, this is perhaps a reflection of the more skewed audience profiles of females and young people, respectively,” Lipsman said.