Swipe, tap and click and collect is leading to a social shopping bonanza for retailers that is costing Australians $16 billion a year.
New research by ING found Australians are spending an average of $860 annually on impulse buys online. A stunning 3.2 million people have admitted to buying something from their social feed every fortnight. While one in five people say they consider buying something every time they scroll through their feed.
Over half (55 per cent) of Australians have either bought via social media platforms, or been influenced to purchase later, with Facebook taking the top honour (22 per cent) as the most popular social shopping platform ahead of Instagram (9 per cent), YouTube (9 per cent) and Pinterest (4 per cent).
35 per cent of millennials said they often buy products whilst on their daily commute.
Melanie Evans, ING Head of Retail, said: “Online shopping is undoubtedly very convenient and the recent emergence of shopping via social media has made it easier than ever to get what we want, but it’s also easy to unintentionally overspend.
“It’s a good idea to be aware of the highly targeted advertising often employed by social media
platforms, which can increase temptation to buy things we otherwise wouldn’t have considered.
“If you are focused on saving, try and avoid those impulse purchases and the buyer’s remorse that can come with them. Spontaneous dips into our hard-earned savings all add up.”
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