Social media has become the new shopping mall in Canada as consumers turn to online shopping.
Nearly half (47 per cent) of Canadian social media users are shopping on social, according to a report released Thursday by PayPal Canada. The Social Commerce Trend Study also found that almost 40 per cent plan to shop on social media this holiday season.
Canadian social media users spend an average of $77 per month — $924 per year — shopping on social platforms.
“A few years back, people could browse on social media platforms but that’s as far as you could go. Today, ‘Buy Now’ buttons are a reality and allow people to shop when they are scrolling through social media platforms—making it a popular commerce trend,” Paul Parisi, president of PayPal Canada, said in a statement.
Citing the eMarketer’s 2019 Social Commerce Report, PayPal said the percentage of retailers in North America using social media as a source of e-commerce nearly doubled from 17 per cent in 2017 to 33 per cent in 2018.
The PayPal study found Canadian social media users spend 6.4 hours on social media platforms every day– make it no surprise that nearly half of Canadian social media users say they’re more likely to engage in online shopping this holiday season than last year (46 per cent).
Four in five Canadian social media shoppers like that social media shows them products they are interested in—but would not have discovered otherwise (78 per cent), the PayPal study reported.
Among Canadian social media users, men are online shopping more (33 per cent) than women (26 per cent) on a monthly basis. They are buying fashion items such as clothing, shoes, and accessories (54 per cent), electronics (26 per cent), toys and games (21 per cent), home décor (20 per cent) and event tickets (19 per cent). More than half of social media shoppers admitted to impulse purchases on social media platforms (52 per cent).
“Goods and services are now brought directly to the consumer on the platforms they frequent. Facebook was identified as the most frequently shopped social media platform among Canadians (29 per cent) followed closely by Snapchat (26 per cent) and Instagram (25 per cent),” said the PayPal report.
“The study also revealed that when it comes to a preferred location or timing for shopping on social media, Canadians are all over the map. The study found that 42 per cent have shopped on social media while commuting, and 32 per cent have shopped on social media during a conference call or meeting at work.”
The views, opinions and positions expressed by columnists and contributors are the author’s alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of our publication.
