UK Social Media and Shopping: 2026
Social commerce continues to thrive, with 90% of social media buyers purchasing a product through social platforms.
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
- Outlook for social commerce
- Opportunities
- In-app AI chatbots will move social discovery to mission-led shopping
- Verification will be the next battleground for social commerce
- The UK’s U16s social media ban in 2027 will reshape discovery for younger consumers
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THE MARKET
- Market factors
- AI generated content threatens positive shopping experience
- Humanity and credibility will become competitive advantages
- Bridging the AI chatbot trust gap, and why it can’t wait
- Graph 1: consumer attitudes towards AI chatbots, 2025
- Social media AI chatbots bring on greater regulatory scrutiny
- Changes to the ‘de minimis’ threshold will level the playing field
- Brands to face stricter digital advertising regulation
- Emergence of ‘Anti-AI’ marketing movement
- A social media ban for under-16s will take effect in Spring 2027
- Social media bans will strip away more than access
- Live shopping quickly growing into its own sales channel
- Graph 2: “Thinking about the livestream shopping events I have watched, in the last three months I have…”, 2026
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THE CONSUMER
- Social media usage and purchasing
- Nine in 10 purchased a product via social media in 2026
- Tik Tok overtakes Facebook as top platform for shoppers
- Graph 3: purchasing via social media platforms, 2025-26
- Who leads purchasing via TikTok?
- Seamless end-to-end buying is driving men to shop on TikTok
- Graph 4: purchasing via social media platforms by males, 2025-26
- Young males pull back on BPC and jewellery purchasing
- Graph 5: purchasing in selected categories via social media by males aged 16-34, 2025-26
- Meta loses purchasing appeal for 16-34s
- Graph 6: purchases made via Meta, by age group, 2025-26
- Can Facebook Marketplace be Meta’s redeeming hero?
- Females 35-54 increase purchasing in fashion and BPC
- Graph 7: purchasing in selected categories via social media by females aged 35-54, 2025-26
- Social media product discovery and browsing behaviours
- Shoppers no longer passively browse products
- Graph 8: social commerce browsing and buyjng products via social media, 2026
- Enhance search functionality on smaller platforms to boost usage
- Graph 9: “I would like more options for filtering product searches on social media”, by social media platform usage, 2026
- Pinterest blurs advertising and social discovery
- In-app AI chatbots to boost conversational shopping
- Why shoppable storytelling will challenge traditional social advertising
- Social media purchasing behaviours
- Verified brands signal trust and quality to shoppers
- Graph 10: buyers purchasing experience on social media, 2026
- Shoppers with healthy finances lead on purchasing with verified retailer
- Trust means more than a blue tick
- TikTok Market celebrates small brands
- Leverage communities around shared hobbies to engage male shoppers
- In-app AI chatbots help bring male buyers closer to smaller brands
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LAUNCH ACTIVITY AND INNOVATION
- Meta turns to AI to make shopping easier on Instagram
- THG Studios launched an AI-powered, shoppable catwalk
- John Lewis launches Mother’s Day beauty box exclusively on TikTok Shop
- Too Faced celebrated new UK TikTok launch with pop-up
- Shoe Zone joins TikTok Shop in social-first push
- MAC introduces ‘UK-first’ affiliate programme ahead of TikTok Shop launch
- QVC opens TikTok live studios in social commerce push
- Waitrose turns to YouTube series to pull in younger shoppers
- P. Louise finds success in physical retail
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APPENDIX
- The consumer
- Consumer research questions
- Abbreviations
Social commerce continues to thrive, with 90% of social media buyers purchasing a product through social platforms. The most defining shift in this space, however, has been TikTok’s rise to overtake Facebook as the go-to platform for social shopping. Fuelled by entertainment-driven discovery, frictionless in-feed purchasing, and a powerful recommendation algorithm, TikTok is forcing every major platform to strengthen its commerce ecosystem and close the gap between discovery and checkout.
A key opportunity in social commerce is to leverage in-app chatbots. Nearly half (47%) of social media buyers have used one when making a purchase, showing that more of the buying journey is happening on these platforms. Shoppers are also changing how they search, moving away from keywords toward describing goals and problems they want solved. This raises the bar for in-app chatbots, which must now tackle specific shopping missions, rather than simply surfacing product information. Here, AI-powered chatbots can help shoppers find products faster, shorten the path from discovery to purchase, and meet consumers where they already spend their time.
However, as social feeds become more saturated with AI content, verification, transparency and human-centred experiences are becoming essential. This means trust on social platforms is emerging as the defining battleground of social commerce.
This Report Looks at the Following Areas:
- Changes in social media usage and buying in the last year
- How social media is evolving from a discovery platform into a search destination
- How changing search and discovery habits are reshaping the path to purchase
- How in-app chatbots are accelerating the shift towards conversational commerce
- Why verification and trust signals will become increasingly important in driving purchase confidence
- How social media bans and platform uncertainty are exposing the risks of platform-dependent commerce
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