WSL: Social Networking Impacts Shopping

Home Textiles Today Staff -- Home Textiles Today, 12/3/2010 4:00:36 AM

NEW YORK - WSL Strategic Retail is out with a new study that finds 75% of shoppers participated in social networking in the past month - and 45% used their social networking site for shopping activity.
     "Social media influences buying. It is broader than kids talking to each other on Facebook or following a Tweet. It is about moms, men and Boomers tapping and clicking onto sites that tell them what to buy and where," said Wendy Liebmann, ceo of WSL Strategic Retail.
     The survey, How America Shops From Buzz to Buy, found that while 47% of consumers overall use their social network to engage in shopping activities, that goes up to 57% among GenXers and to 52% among the affluent.
     Millennials - aged 15-32 - spend the most hours on social networking sites, about seven per week, but they don't do the most shopping. That honor goes to GenXers - aged 33-44 - who spend 5.5 hours per week with shopping-related social media, nearly an hour more per week than other generations.