More Data Suggests Social Traffic From Polyvore Spends the Most

March 14, 2014

This article is included in these additional categories:

Digital | Retail & E-Commerce | Social Media

Shopify-Average-Order-Value-by-Social-Referrer-Mar2014Social media still refers only a fraction of traffic to e-commerce sites, but it remains a topic of keen interest, particularly as its influence appears to be growing. New data released by Shopify examines 37 million social visits to its client stores resulting in 529,000 orders, comparing various platforms in terms of total traffic, conversion rates, and average order values. Not surprisingly, Facebook was dominant in terms of social traffic (63% share) – but Polyvore emerged with the highest average order value (AOV). Its AOV of $66.75 was ahead of others such as Pinterest ($58.95), Facebook ($55) and Twitter ($46.29).

There is a big caveat to the data – due to its fractional share of total visitors to Shopify’s clients, the average order value for Polyvore visitors comes from just 436 orders, an extremely small dataset. Nevertheless, the results align with a study released last year by RichRelevance, which used a much larger dataset in determining that visitors from Polyvore had a much higher AOV than those referred by other social networks.

Most of the other results from the two datasets differed in relative terms. For example, RichRelevance data showed Polyvore driving more shopping sessions than Pinterest and Twitter, a result not shared by Shopify’s clients. So while the results are certainly not conclusive, the convergence in results for AOV are at least interesting and food for thought.

Some other findings from Shopify’s analysis:

  • Facebook’s 1.85% average conversion rate outpaced all others by a considerable margin, with Vimeo (1.16%), YouTube (1.16%) and Instagram (1.08%) the only others to crack the 1% margin (bear in mind that absolute figures are less relevant here than comparative analyses.);
  • Clients saw rapid growth in orders last year from Reddit (+152%) and Facebook (+129%);
  • Facebook accounted for 85% share of orders from social media overall, but other platforms were significant also in some particular industries, such as YouTube for automotive (26% share of orders) and Reddit for electronics and appliances (31% share).
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