Gen Z is fueling a social shopping explosion, with 39% now having purchased and 76% having discovered products on social media platforms, according to Salesforce’s latest Connected Shoppers Report.
The future of retail hinges on capturing the market for Gen Z, a demographic born between the mid-to-late 1990s and early 2010s that is expected to command up to $9-trillion in global spending power by 2034 – more than any other generation.
Social media shopping — a fragmented landscape made up of dozens of platforms like TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube — is a key battleground.
Retailers need a unified commerce platform that combines AI capabilities, a centralised data foundation, and seamless application interoperability to manage these increasingly complex shopping journeys.
More than half (53%) of all shoppers now discover products through social platforms, up from 46% in 2023.
Gen Z is leading the charge, with 76% using social media to find products.
While YouTube dominates overall, TikTok is a Gen Z hotspot, attracting 40% of younger shoppers compared to just 4% of Baby Boomers, born between 1946 and 1964.
“Social commerce is the latest channel for digital spending that is fragmenting across a constellation of marketplaces, retailer websites, brand sites, and delivery apps, rather than consolidating into a single channel,” says Linda Saunders, country leader and senior director: solutions engineering, Africa at Salesforce.
“Brands that fully embrace its potential will be in prime position to capture their share of the growing Gen Z market.”
Gen Z is also adopting AI to find and evaluate products at a much higher rate.
More than half (54%) of Gen Zers have used generative AI to discover and evaluate a product, versus 39% for the total population.
Gen Z shoppers are also 10-times more likely than Baby Boomers to frequently use AI to discover new products, and 2,7-times as likely to want product recommendations from AI agents (63% versus 23%).