Tag Archive for: social media shopping

Fewer people are using TikTok compared to last year and the social network is losing ground as an e-commerce search engine, according to a new study from CivicScience. 

Meanwhile, Amazon is reconnecting with younger generations and growing as the main starting point for people looking for products online. 

In the study, CivicScience asked U.S. online consumers this question: “When shopping for a product online, where do you typically start for product searches and research?” The survey then compared the responses from this year’s survey against those from 2022. 

TikTok gained some attention last year when analysts noted that it was driving a surprising amount of e-commerce-related search traffic – particularly from younger users. This led the company to announce it intends to develop a $20 billion e-commerce business. It is unclear if recent trends have changed those plans or not. 

It is no surprise that Amazon and Google continue to dominate the e-commerce search market. No other challengers have come close. However, Google did see a slight dip in the number of e-commerce searches being made on its platform. 

The most notable shift from this year’s findings may be the increasing popularity of Amazon among younger age groups who had been previously moving away from the shopping platform. 

Compared to last year, Amazon increased its popularity among younger age groups including 18- to 24-year olds (up 45%) and 25- to 34-year-olds (up 44%). 

For more, read the findings from CivicScience here.

Pinterest is angling to make itself the leading social network for e-commerce activity with a slew of new features and advancements for shopping. 

As the announcement for the updates explains, Pinterest has seen a surge in the number of merchants listing their products on the platform (up 87% in Q1 of 2022 alone).

Now, the company is hoping to double down on this with a new Pinterest API for Shopping, Product Tagging for Pins, Videos in Shopping Catalogs, and the introduction of a Shop Tab on Business Profiles:

“At Pinterest, our goal is to turn inspiration into action, and our vision for shopping is to make it possible to buy anything Pinners are inspired by on the platform. In 2021, the number of Pinners engaging with shopping surfaces on Pinterest grew over 215%, and 89% of weekly Pinners use Pinterest for inspiration in their path to purchase. The new shopping features such as the API for Shopping allows brands and retailers to reach high-intent Pinners during the earliest stage of their shopping journey with the most updated catalog data.”

Pinterest API for Shopping

Pinterest wants to make it easy to manage your products no matter how large your inventory is. With the new API for Shopping, you can more accurately manage metadata for your products with early tests showing the tool was 97% accurate.

Product Tagging for Pins

Though the social network is leaning more heavily into the world of shopping, the main focus is still on Pins that users and brands share. With Product Tagging, you can make your pins a seamless part of your sales process. Once you have tagged your products in pins, shoppers can easily click on the tags to be immediately taken to a sales page.

Video in Catalog

The typically image-based social network is gradually integrating video. The latest move in this direction is the ability to use video assets in product catalogs to showcase your products in motion.

Shop Tab on Business Profiles

Make your online store a more prominent part of your business profile with a new tab dedicated to your shop. According to early tests, approximately 30% of Shopify merchants said they got their first attributed checkout directly from this high-intent shopping feature.