High St retailers dropping social commerce ball, Curalate
Most UK High Street retailers are not utilising social commerce effectively, despite 74% of the top 50 making it possible for consumers to see featured products when they click on a social image or post, according to research from Curalate.
Its study focused on Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest. Of the retailers offering social shopping functions, Pinterest was the most popular site with shoppable pins used by 73%, while 62% and 49% implemented Facebook and Instagram commerce features respectively. Overall, 30% integrated social content on site to increase customer engagement with their brand and drive further product discovery.
“Many retailers offer some form of social shopping function, but most are failing to use social commerce to its full potential,” says Apu Gupta, CEO of Curalate. “Social media is both a channel and source of content. To win at social commerce, brands must not only make the channel shoppable but also bring shoppable social content onto their websites to inspire their site visitors as well.”
The research also revealed that of those with social shopping functions, just 16% of retailers facilitated purchasing on all three channels. 38% did so on two, while 46% used one.