The importance of having shoppable content on Facebook has been highlighted by the revelation that 23% Brits are using the network to search for Christmas gift ideas.
Although Amazon and Google still dominate in the online product search arena, Facebook is way ahead of social network rivals Pinterest and Twitter while only being 15% behind eBay in terms of user adoption.
Conducted by SEO platform Searchmetrics, a survey of over 1,000 adults shows that UK shoppers are more than familiar with logging into Facebook to trawl company pages and on-site advertising for the best deals and gift suggestions.
Others will put their online connections to good use by heading to Facebook in search of recommendations from their peers.
It’s part of an approach that Marcus Tober, founder and CTO of Searchmetrics, is all in favour of.
“One of the benefits of looking for product ideas on social networks is that you get to see feedback and preferences from other consumers, as well as participate in online discussions about products with a range of people, including your own friends and followers.
“And of course, purchase recommendations from other shoppers – especially friends – can be very powerful,” added Tober.
Amazon keeps ahead of Google
Convenience is being cited as one of the driving forces behind online product searches with 32% of Searchmetrics’ consumer group stating that gift shopping was less stressful over the web.
Searchmetrics’ table shows that Amazon is the product gateway of choice for this crowd thanks to 61% using the online marketplace as inspiration for gift ideas. Analysts believe Google changed its ‘Shopping’ feature to a paid-for option in order to compete with Amazon as an online marketplace.
The results shows that precisely half of Brits (50%) use Google to search for Christmas gifts, but also that the company is struggling to assert its dominance on this particular area of online search. 
