Social Commerce: Pinterest drives more website transactions than Facebook

When online boutique Bottica.com compared 50,000 visitors on Pinterest with the same number on Facebook they found more website transactions came from the social image-sharing network than Facebook - 10% vs. 7%.

Furthermore, 87% of the London-based boutique's first-time visitors originated from Pinterest compared with just 57% from Facebook. Bottica.com now has 40,000 followers across its 67 branded Pinterest boards.

However, it's not all good news for Pinterest. Users were less engaged and less likely to convert. Pinterest users spent 65% less time on Bottica.com than Facebook users and conversion rates are 51% lower than from Facebook users.

But, when they do convert, Pinterest users spend big. The average order value of a Pinterest user is $180, 90% higher than that of a shopper from Facebook.

But is this analysis comparing apples with apples? Not really. The two sites have different audiences who visit the sites for different reasons. While Facebook users are, on the whole, engaged socially, Pinterest users are being visually stimulated, a more ideal environment for those inclined to shop.

Earlier this month a survey from Bizrate Insight found that social image-sharing websites such as Pinterest, Juxtapost, Discoveredd and Polyvore inspired product consideration and purchases.

Almost a third (32%) of the 3,741 online buyers surveyed had made a purchase as a result of seeing an image on a social image-sharing site, such as Pinterest. Of those, 26% were able to click through to the retailer from the image to make the purchase. Six percent had to look for the product on another site as clicking the image did not take them to a retailer.

Another 37% had seen items they wanted to buy on image-sharing sites. One in 10 did not make a purchase as they couldn't find them and 27% did not purchase because they didn't take the time to look for them.

Tags: ecommerce, F-commerce, social commerce, social media