Photo by Vitaly Gariev

When was the last time you made a purchase on social media? The social media industry is changing and is never at a standstill, with its platforms constantly evolving and becoming a one-stop place for anything you need. Over the years, we have seen the introductions of short videos on all platforms, stories, new ways to engage with one another, and AI companions. The most recent attraction is the incorporation of shops. Adding a shop to the platform allows ease for the user to buy products they see rather than trying to look them up on other websites. For consumers, this ease of use gravitates us towards using the feature. For the platform, it is a win-win as they get more engagement, they can make money from their shop, and they keep users on the platform longer. We can originate from the start of the Facebook marketplace, which has been around for years and has inspired the creation of the Pinterest, Instagram, and TikTok shops.

Facebook Marketplace + Page Shops

Facebook marketplace is a service through Facebook where users can buy and sell goods. Think of eBay but through Facebook’s platform. It initially launched in 2016 and has been successfully running since. It was our first time seeing a shop-like feature on social media. While the structure of the new social media shops is different, it paved the way for their creation.

Separate from the Facebook marketplace, the platform has also incorporated business pages. These pages allow businesses to sell items as their online shop through the platform. This feature is very similar to Instagram Shopping as they are managed by the parent company, Meta.

Pinterest Shop

 In 2017, with brand partners, Pinterest introduced a new “Shop the Look Pins” feature on its platform. This allowed people to make pins of items or clothing that others could click on and buy. Stemming from this, they eventually added a shop tab on the platform in 2020. Continuing to make the experience more efficient, in 2022, they allowed businesses to add product tags. They are still building on their shop and introducing new features to maximize its use. 

Instagram Shopping

Instagram launched its shop feature in 2020. Since Instagram is owned by Meta, the same company as Facebook, the shopfront is similar to the existing Facebook page shops. On the app, you can post a picture and tag a product that links it to their store. This adds the ease of access feature, generating more consumer clicks and visits.

TikTok Shop

 TikTok shop was first launched for beta testing in China in 2022 but eventually appeared globally at the end of 2023 and has become widely successful. Similarly to Instagram, you can tag a product in your post linking directly to purchasing it on the shop feature. While the Facebook marketplace and Instagram shopping are successful, it is estimated that Americans spend 7 million dollars a day on the TikTok shop. A combination of ease of access and low prices has TikTok shop at the forefront of social media shopping models.

Consumer Benefits

At the end of the day, consumers want one thing: ease. Everything on social media is becoming automated and finding ways to make actions easier. These shops save several minutes and clicks of going to Google or Amazon and searching for a product. 

Another benefit for consumers is the conveniently low prices that are available. While there are full-price products, we often find deals on items. Whether they are discounted prices or the platform giving us a coupon code, you can discover things cheaper than other websites.

Platform Benefits

Successful features like this have a lot of benefits for the platform. First off, social media success is all about clicks and engagement. With the new shop feature, “projections indicate that the number of TikTok shoppers will grow 6.2% annually to 39.5 million by 2026”. Those statistics are just for TikTok. Without the shop being introduced, they would lose out on a large chunk of those engagement opportunities. All of this has generated amounts of money they never thought were possible.

Similarly to every social media statistics or analytics article you read, you find that data is power. These apps can collect data on our every move; whether that is the posts we like, share, or even how much time we spend on a post. People spend time shopping on the app, the platforms can drastically increase our time spent on the app therefore following our every move as we maneuver to what we like. Tracking this data becomes vital when they create personalized ads to generate even more revenue opportunities.

Including shops on social media is mutually beneficial for consumers and platforms. Consumers gain ease of access and can share/endorse products they like easily while platforms generate more revenue and data collection. I am sure we are all guilty of purchasing items on social media spur of the moment because of how easy it is. Whether we end up regretting them or not is a different story.

Author: Joseph Scalzo

Joseph Scalzo is a Social Media Strategist Intern at the National Institute for Social Media. He graduated from California Lutheran University with a Bachelor of Science in Business Marketing. He is attending San Francisco State University where he is a student-athlete playing baseball and working towards getting his second Bachelor in Communication Studies. He has also completed many courses in International Relations.