Dive Brief

• Urban Outfitters-owned fashion retailer Free People garnered the top score among 872 brands in a Commerce IQ report by 8thBridge, a social commerce platform vendor. The retailer is not an 8thBridge client.
• Shoppers are actively engaged on the Free People site and upload photos of themselves wearing the brand’s clothes. Since last year, customers have created more than 30,000 collections and uploaded more than 20,000 images.
• Pinning by customers and the retailer itself has driven 3.52% of its web traffic from Pinterest alone.

Dive Insight

In its report “Social Commerce IQ: Retailer 2013”, 8thBridge calculated scores using 52 data points, including upstream traffic from social networks, number of followers, customer interactions and social media features on the companies' own sites, among other metrics. The report of the top companies engaging customers through social media —​ which in addition to Free People include Lancome, Smashbox, LollyWollyDoodle, Plndr, Target, and others —​ shows the effectiveness of playing social media well.