E-retailers’ Facebook pages produce few holiday sales

E-retailers that expected their Facebook fan pages to be a fount of sales during the holiday season were likely disappointed. The vast majority—91.4%—of 1,000 online holiday shoppers surveyed by Baynote Inc. purchased nothing from an e-retailer’s Facebook fan page.

Expectations that a consumer’s personal connections on Facebook or other social networks at least might influence a consumer’s purchase also appear to have gone unmet. 80.2% of respondents said their online social connections had no influence on their holiday purchase decisions.

While 95.4% of consumers said e-commerce sites met or exceeded their overall shopping expectations this past December, a somewhat lower 83.5% said Facebook fan pages met their needs. 84% of shoppers were satisfied shopping on retailer sites via their smartphones and 82.1% were happy with their experience using a tablet computer.

“While social, mobile and tablet all have tremendous potential, retailers need to improve the customer shopping experience across these new channels,” says Anurag Wadehra, Baynote chief marketing officer.

Baynote sells e-commerce personalization software.