In a reflection of the growth in social commerce, retailers on Etsy can now sell their products in-stream on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Tumblr.

Etsy is the first online marketplace to enable social shopping via Zantler’s social commerce platform and follows the adoption by ecommerce platforms such as Amazon Webstore, Shopify and Bigcommerce. Zantler reports that it is seeing a 22 percent engagement rate with its social commerce posts on Facebook, with 42 percent of all engagements happening on mobile.

“For merchants, it gives them other channels to list a product in a similar fashion they would on their own Etsy site, while also enabling them to sell right where their customers spend a lot of their time being influenced about what to buy,” said James Lively, president of Zantler.

“And it provides them a simple way – that doesn’t require coding expertise or technical skills – to reach buyers on desktop and mobile devices with rich, interactive product offers,” he said.

“Plus, the portability of shopposts across all social networks provides huge earned media potential.”

Branded social shopping
The move makes Zantler’s social commerce platform Shoppost available to Etsy’s million-plus vintage and handmade specialty retailers. Shop King Dude is one of the first merchants to take advantage of Shoppost for Etsy.

The social posts, called shopposts, include up-to-date information on product color and size availability as well as pricing from a merchant’s Etsy page.

Once consumers click the buy button in a post, they are taken straight to the merchant’s Etsy branded shopping cart.

Amazon Webstore merchants are also leveraging Shoppost

Merchants can also take advantage of an analytics tool to review engagement and see which products convert best o which sites

Sharing to Tumblr
Shoppost also recently introduced a sharing button for Tumblr similar to the ones already offered for Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest. The move reflects how Tumblr is the fastest-growing social media site.

The sharing button enables merchants to post shopposts with a single click to Tumblr. Additionally, consumers can share a shoppost from one social media platform to Tumblr.

Last month, Amazon made the Shoppost platform available to retailers using its Amazon Webstore ecommerce platform, with retailers such as Spiegel and Fair Indigo already embracing the program (see story).

These developments point to how social commerce is growing quickly as more consumers engage with their smartphones to research and purchase products.

“While we’ve found shoppable posts are great to reach a wide variety of people, they’ve been overwhelmingly leveraged by fashion and apparel merchants who are trying to reach their appropriate demographics,” Mr. Lively said. “Sellers with active and engaged social audiences seem to do best with shopposts, and both men and women seem to engage equally with the products featured within our sellers’ shopposts.

“In addition, we’re seeing the highest engagement rate with Shopposts on Facebook at 22 percent,” he said. “And 42 percent of all engagement with shopposts are happening on mobile.”

Final Take
Chantal Tode is senior editor on Mobile Commerce Daily, New York