What Does the Rise in Social Shopping Mean for Fashion?

Last month, a report by the consulting firm Accenture gave us the data for something we surely knew in our hearts to already be true: that social media is fast becoming a mainstream method of spending our money online.

Okay, no shock there. If you’ve spent more than two minutes on Instagram in the last few years then you’ve been bombarded by ads between Stories and feed posts from brands you’ve never heard of or shown interest in – and, from those brands and stores that you do intentionally follow, you will have seen a rise in integrated, shoppable products within posts. For better or for worse, this has been the trend for some time now.

The figures themselves, though, are slightly more arresting.

The Accenture report projects that, by 2025, social media shopping will hit an enormous $1.2 trillion USD – taking up close to 17% of all e-commerce. Currently sitting at roughly 10% of the market share, at a value of $492 million USD, that’s a massive increase in what is predicted to be a relatively short amount of time.

The question of “Why?” has a simple answer: shifting demographics mean shifting habits. Gen Z and Millennial shoppers are set to account for something like 25% of all e-commerce spending within the same timeframe. These shoppers are not only more familiar with – and, in many cases, native to – social media, their values systems are completely different when it comes to how they make their purchases online. Where older generations look more to hallmarks of familiarity and security, their younger counterparts are more concerned with notions of authenticity – something easily conveyed and easily marketed (as well as easily falsified) on social media.

The real question, then, is more about what this all means. Particularly when it comes to fashion.

In short, it means a re-think – but probably not a big one; more of a minor diversion from the path that brands are already taking with how they operate on social media in terms of selling their product and selling themselves. Where brands already use influencers and celebrities to showcase their wares, what we’ll likely see as label’s respond to this data is a rise in “shoppable personalities”: when a brand shares imagery (either imagery they’ve created themselves or content that has been generated) of a recognisable figure, no opportunity to create direct e-commerce links will be missed. Every sneaker and pair of sunglasses – every shirt and every pair of pants – will be meticulously connected to the online catalogue.

It’s not really a different approach, so to speak, just a more deliberate and attentive version of the system currently in place. It will, most likely, no longer be enough just to take advantage of the cultural capital attached to the names and faces that a brand decides to work with; the numbers themselves – the standard metrics of likes, shares, comments, etc. by which social media success is judged – will be shown up as inconsequential. Immaterial even.

Again, this is hardly groundbreaking: brands may act like your friend on social media because that’s the nature of the beast, but they’ve always been there with the sole intention of converting clicks to commerce. Where this might feel like more of a change, however, is the way in which influencers – particularly macro-influencers, who are less obvious in their product placement and whose entire existence is predicated on locating themselves within the culture, rather than as an outlet for the brands they tacitly represent. These figures, too, will no longer be able to hide the purpose of their posting: if social is to be the new frontier of fashion sales, then every opportunity must be taken. If the clothes exist to be bought, there will be a direct link to buy them through what will certainly be a heavily incentivised affiliate scheme. After all, if you’re going to make someone give up any pretence of objectivity and stylistic credibility, then you’ve got to make it worth their while too.

Beyond the mechanics of buying through social, though, there is also the question of what this means for creativity – both on social media platforms and in the wider sense, too.

Despite the knee-jerk reaction to argue when older generations pass comment on what social media has done to the brains of Gen Z and Millennials, the fact is that it’s not entirely untrue: these are platforms that reward short attention spans and instant gratification, encouraging the creation of content that is for one-time use – never to be returned to again. And this pretty much runs counter to every notion of what makes good design.

Yes, a good sneaker or a good piece of apparel will be eye-catching in the first instance, but – beyond that – there will be a world of detail to explore in terms of texture, tone, and form; let alone things you can’t necessarily see, like engineering and material quality, which have to be communicated with some level of depth to be truly appreciated. And, while it may be cynical, it’s really not unreasonable to think that brands may start to de-prioritise these elements in favour of what stands out on first glance: this, after all, is not a one-way street – for brands to sell more through social media and to reap the rewards of a new commercial avenue, they will surely have to adapt to suit the ways in which those platforms already work.

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Perhaps cooler heads will prevail – that does happen. (Sometimes. Apparently.) Social media really isn’t, inherently at least, the enemy of creativity. Or it doesn’t need to be, anway. As consumers – both of social content and of the products sold to us through those platforms – we need to play our part; to be mindful of the decisions that we make and think about the ways in which we’re being marketed to.

There’s nothing wrong with buying your sneakers through social media. Just make sure you’re still buying them for the right reasons. Hopefully those decisions will filter down – or make it up, as it were – to the people who matter.