Report: Social sharing pushes product discovery

Social sharing is also driving retail traffic, finds the report. Some interesting findings include:

• 62% of online shoppers have read 'purchase related comments' on Facebook
• 75% have clicked product links on social network posts
• 53% of those who have 'clicked' have finalized a purchase

"We found that consumers discover what products to buy through social sharing, and then act on that information 75% of the time. Retailers have the ability to trigger this kind of sharing from their ecommerce sites, driving both significant referral visits and conversion uplift if they fully leverage it," said Darby Williams, VP of Marketing at Sociable Labs. "Now with high-velocity 'Frictionless Sharing', social sharing can become one of the top drivers of both for almost any online retailer."

Perhaps of even more importance, nearly half (48%) of those surveyed said social sharing is 'extremely' or 'very' helpful to their shopping experience.

Meanwhile, the practice of including socially shared content directly to a retailer website is becoming more popular with shoppers. One-third (33%) of those surveyed report they are 'more likely to shop' on sites that include social sharing content; that increases to more than 60% if the content shared is from a friend of that shopper.

Tags: ecommerce, ecommerce trends, Sociable Labs, social commerce, social marketing, social sharing, social shopping