Social media-inspired purchases often occur on mobile devices, according to survey results [download page] from Vision Critical. The study looked at Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest users who had made an online purchase after sharing or favoriting an item (social media “purchasers”), asking them if any of their social media-inspired purchases were ever made on a mobile device (i.e. smartphone, tablet). Twitter purchasers proved most likely to have done so: 35% said they used a mobile to make all of their purchases.
With another 46% saying “most” or “some” of their socially-inspired purchases were made using a mobile device, that leaves just 1 in 5 saying none of those purchases were made using a mobile.
The responses from Pinterest and Facebook users were rather different. Among Pinterest purchasers, 19% reported that all of their social-inspired purchases were made using a mobile device, and another 43% said “most” or “some” of them were. Among Facebook purchasers those figures were 17% and 40%, respectively.
In the study, purchasers are those that buy an item after having shared or favoriting it. That refers to the following activities:
- Pinning/repinning/liking on Pinterest;
- Sharing/liking/commenting on Facebook; and
- Tweeting/retweeting or favoriting on Twitter.
While social purchasers as a whole skew male (56%), that lean is significantly greater when looking at mobile purchasers, of whom 69% proved to be male. That result aligns with various pieces of research (some cited here) which shows mobile shopping to be more popular among men than women.
Not surprisingly, mobile social purchasers also tend to be younger than social purchasers in general. 68% of those who had made social-inspired purchases via mobile are aged 18-34, compared to 51% of social purchasers overall.
About the Data: The data is based on a June 2013 survey of 1,006 respondents in the US.
