The Australian shopping journey has been rewritten, with six in ten Australians now take action after seeing a product on social media.
The finding, published in Pattern’s ‘2026 Marketplace Consumer Report’, shows social media is now driving purchase decisions at scale, fundamentally reshaping how consumers discover, evaluate and buy products and forcing brands to rethink how they go to market.
The research shows that 60% of Australians search for products on Google after seeing them on social media. Half of shoppers also report clicking through to a brand or retailer’s website and 41% go directly to Amazon. This highlights a fundamental change, where social media is no longer just influencing demand, it’s actively generating it at scale.
“Australia’s social commerce market is projected to grow 20% annually to reach approximately $12 billion by 2030,” said Merline McGregor, Managing Director at Pattern Australia.
“This highlights the scale of the opportunity and the urgency for brands to adapt or lose relevance and market share.”
Influencers skew younger sales
The role of social media influencers continues to grow in Australia, but their impact is highly concentrated among younger audiences.
Overall, 38% of consumers say they are more likely to purchase a product if it’s recommended by an influencer they follow. Among 18–24-year-olds, this rises to 62% and 61% for those aged 25–34.
However, influence declines significantly with age, dropping to 20% among 55 to 64-year-olds and just 8% for those 65 and over.
Trust gap remains a barrier to full conversion
Despite its growing influence, a trust gap in social commerce remains a key barrier to full conversion for many shoppers. A significant number of Australians choose to save products discovered on social media for further research (26%), while others seek recommendations from friends or family (25%) before making a purchase.
This caution is further reinforced by the fact that 42% of consumers still prefer to complete transactions through familiar retailer channels, where established customer service and returns processes are present.
Brands must create connections where their customers are
Although social media is increasingly the starting point for product discovery, purchase behaviour remains distributed across a range of channels. When a product captures attention, more than a third of consumers are most likely to complete their purchase on a brand or retailer’s website. Amazon follows closely at 28%, while 19% prefer to buy in-store.
The findings point to a fragmented path to purchase, where social platforms generate demand, but conversion is shared across retail channels.
“Brands should stop thinking about social media as separate from commerce,” said Ms McGregor. “Consumers are moving fluidly from social content to marketplaces to retailer websites to stores. Brands that convert shoppers are the ones that can create demand on social media and carry it through to wherever the customer chooses to buy.”
