45% actively recommend products on social media sites
Rakuten’s e-commerce index has discovered that over a third of Brits (36 per cent) share products with their social network; while globally 45 per cent recommend products.
It was discovered that Brits are the biggest online spenders, with an average spend of £1,088 per person each year, ahead of the US, France, and Germany.
Adam Stewart, marketing director at Rakuten, said: “At Rakuten’s Play.com, social platforms were responsible for generating £1.8 million of direct sales in 2012, and this growth has been boosted by a 122 per cent increase in orders from social networks specifically over the last six months.
“Social is set to become increasingly important, for example Gartner predicted earlier this year that 50 per cent of information on new customers will be based on social network identities, such as ‘login with Facebook’, by the end of 2015, which is up from less than 5 per cent today. As an industry we need to build consumer confidence in social shopping platforms, as well as allowing shoppers to easily share content through these channels.”
The index research also found that the UK leads the usage of mobile amongst Western countries with 12 per cent of people regularly using a smartphone, tablet, or other mobile device to shop, followed by the US (10 per cent), and Spain (9 per cent).
Stewart added: “Whether online, on mobile, or in-store, consumers are coming to expect a high level of customer service and an integrated brand experience across all available channels. It’s no longer enough to merely have a website that compliments your brick-and-mortar presence, retailers must start to develop interactive experiences which merge physical and digital channels.”
Worldwide, Indonesians continued be the most mobile shoppers, with 14 per cent of consumers reporting that they mostly shop online using a smartphone, tablet, or other mobile device.