Facebook Drives More E-Commerce Traffic Than Pinterest

This chart shows key metrics of social media channels as a source of e-commerce traffic. The averages are based on data from 689 million shopping sessions that took place in the United States between January and August 2012.

The question has been asked many times: is Facebook of any value to online retailers? According to data recently released by RichRelevance, it is.

The e-commerce specialist analyzed 689 million shopping sessions between January and August with a special focus on sessions that were initiated through social channels. Not surprisingly given its large user base, Facebook drives significantly more traffic to retail sites than Pinterest and Twitter do: the world’s largest social network accounted for 86 percent of all shopping sessions that started off on any of the three sites.

What’s more interesting is the fact that shoppers coming from Facebook are more than twice as likely to make a purchase as those coming from Pinterest, a site much more visual appealing and product-focused than Facebook is. In terms of average order value, Pinterest is far ahead of its peers, which is possibly attributable to the fact that Pinterest has a design-conscious high income user base.