Member Exclusive   //   June 21, 2022  ■  1 min read

See the slides: How DTC brands are adopting social commerce across platforms

By Li Lu

Social commerce has exploded in recent years with $492 billion in 2021 global sales. Brands that could previously only link their profiles to websites to sell goods are making more and more of their sales on the social platforms themselves. And advertisers are using social commerce to provide a one-stop shopping experience and to give consumers a sense of community by engaging them in real-time communication with a brand.

A surge in mobile shopping is largely behind the rise of social commerce. According to Shopify, 72% of the $2.9 billion in 2021 Black Friday sales came from mobile, up from 67% in 2020. The number of shoppers using digital wallets to store credit card information is up too, making social transactions faster and easier. As consumers grow increasingly comfortable with social commerce and advertisers invest more in it, the space is ripe for experimentation and expansion. 

In the slides below, Modern Retail presents an overview of how five consumer-product categories are using social commerce across four leading social media platforms – Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest and TikTok. We also explore the platforms’ user demographics to determine where different generations are active and which platforms have the most potential for social-commerce growth. For a deeper, industry-level analysis of the social commerce landscape examined in the brief, read the full Modern Retail research report.