Shortly after my last post on Pinterest this insightful infographic circulated giving further evidence that the platform could really become a big player in 2012 – check out “is Pinterest the next social commerce game changer“

After making such a huge splash in the US last year (with over 31 million visits) it is only a matter of time before the platform starts to attract UK brands.  Whilst Pinterest rose to number 7 in the Hitwise top 10 social networks of 2011, this was for the US and there may be some way to go before the platform makes a full impact on the UK social media scene.

I was within one short click of buying a new watch from Amazon after following a board called “cool watches” on Pinterest and clicking through the shop site.  What put me off?  I was directed to the US site, all in dollars and whilst I pondered shipping details the moment was lost and I clicked away.  This got me thinking about the UK and when brands will start to adopt the platform and seek to reap the clear social commerce benefits.

This infographic delves into the Pinterest users and provides some interesting initial insight into the UK user base.  Critically though, as of December 2011 there were an estimated 200,000 UK users compared with over 12 million in the US.  Is there enough of a lure for brands quite yet?  My advice to brands would be to get curating, it is only a matter of time.

Find out more about Pinterest’s rapid growth in the USA

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You may have noticed that we’ve been had a very retail focused week here!  As a leading social media agency we’re particularly interested in how social is changing the way we shop.

Given this focus, here’s our pick of the top three retail stories this week:

Retailers set for £85.2bn Christmas windfall – covered on Retail Gazette publicising figures from Verdict Research.  No surprises here that the figures point out that online sales are expected to rise 17.6 per cent to £8.1 billion, and this represents the largest share of growth of any sector.  Maureen Hinton, lead retail analyst at Verdict, interestingly points out that “retailers such as @johnlewisretail, Marks & Spencer and Next, that provide a range of multichannel options for buying, delivery and exchange are the winners at Christmas, as well as specialists with unique ranges such as The White Company.”  Nice to know we’re along the right our social shopping explosion report!

Asos launches mobile site – opening up another route to purchase for the UK’s biggest online fashion retailer this site will work across BlackBerry, Symbian, Android and iPhone operating systems, offering the full range and features of the retailer’s transactional website, such as its ’save for later’ function.  A timely launch in the run up to Christmas.

Weekly Facebook fashion index: most popular retail brands of the moment – a list of the most popular retail brands on Facebook.  Victoria’s Secrets, Zara and H&M are top three.  We will be revealing more data regarding specific brands, from our research, so it will be interesting to compare and relate such an index to our findings.

Following on from the final story, we also spotted some interesting research from DDB on www.adweek.com.  The most interesting points we took from this were:

• Over 90 per cent of Facebook users that have chosen to follow brands can be considered genuine advocates
• 92 per cent of this audience would either “certainly” or “probably” recommend companies and products they “like” on Facebook to their friends
• Fans want to feel more like a VIP who can access exclusive content and information about new products and special offers before the general public can
• 39 per cent of DDB’s interviewees said fan pages could be improved through supplying advance information and previews

Next week, we’ll be writing another post looking specifically at some of the sector findings of the research and providing some top tips on how to engage Twitter and Facebook followers.

In case you’re new to the immediate future blog, we released a major piece of research this week exploring the motivations and mindsets of consumers online (you can get a flavour for some of our findings in previous posts, Should we reward customers for social media recommendations and our introductory post, The Social Shopping Explosion).

You can download the report by visiting http://bit.ly/Social-Shopping

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“The key to social commerce is understanding the roles of the social consumer and the parts they play in the grand production of your marketplace.”[1]

By 2012, online retail sales in the UK are predicted to hit £44.9bn.

And social is changing the way we shop.

Image by dominiccampbell via Flickr

In 2007, Gartner identified two types of online shoppers: hunters and gatherers; those who shopped on price and those who researched products online before making their purchase decision.

Traditionally, online retailers have catered towards the hunters. They’ve recruited customers via search and retained them via email marketing. Price has often been the deciding factor: these customers have already decided what they want to buy.

In August 2010, immediate future surveyed 2,000 UK internet users.  As a social media agency, it’s important to us that we really understand how people behave online.

We found that nearly 50% of consumers are still in the consideration phase. They haven’t yet reached the point in the purchase cycle where they know what they want.

We also found that there are new opportunities for retaining customers post purchase.

Social retail is fundamentally changing the way that consumers shop, and the relationship between customer and brand. It is creating new opportunities for interaction that open up the consideration phase; and different ways of keeping the relationship going beyond the initial sale.

On the 12^th of October, immediate future will be sharing the results of this research at the Internet Retailing Conference.  We will reveal:

• How social retail is transforming the customer journey for online shoppers
• How different types of online shoppers behave along the purchase process
• Motivations to buy and incentives to return for online shoppers
• How online shoppers are talking across social spaces
• How online shoppers would like to engage with the top online retailers

If you’d like to reserve a copy of this report, please click here http://www.immediatefuture.co.uk/resources/social-shopping-explosion

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