Research into social media and retail has shown that Facebook dominates in socially driven shopping, while Pinterest drives the highest average order value.

Key findings:

Facebook dominates as a source of traffic: Shoppers who click-through from Facebook account for the overwhelming majority of shopping sessions at nearly 86% (85.8%), followed by Pinterest (11.3%) and Twitter (2.9%).

Shoppers who started at Facebook browse more – and buy more often: Shoppers who enter retail sites from Facebook tend to stay longer (nearly seven pages per visit vs. nearly three for Twitter and just over four from Pinterest) and purchase somewhat more frequently (conversion rates of 2.63%) than Pinterest (93%) or Twitter (1.09%).

Pinterest drives larger orders – nearly double that of other social channels: While shoppers who come to retail sites from Facebook and Twitter purchase more often, Pinterest users spend dramatically more than either ($168.83 average order value vs. $94.70 for Facebook and $70.84 for Twitter).

Methodology:

This infographic is based on data collected from more than 689 million shopping sessions that took place between January 1 and August 31, 2012 on select US sites that have deployed RichRelevance’s retail recommendation software. The study includes only browser-based shopping sessions and does not include shopping that may originate from mobile app versions of these platforms.