YouTube Presents Contextual Commerce Opportunity for Food Brands

Among consumers who make purchases from social media, PYMNTS research shows, food and beverage shoppers disproportionately turn to YouTube to find inspiration and products.

By the Numbers

For PYMNTS’ study “Tracking the Digital Payments Takeover: Monetizing Social Media Edition,” created in collaboration with Amazon Web Services, we surveyed a census-balanced panel of nearly 3,000 U.S. consumers about their social media shopping habits.

The results revealed that, among the 14% of shoppers who purchased a product through any social media platform, 40% had used YouTube to buy food and beverage products — a greater share than used any other platform for the same kind of purchase.

The Data in Context

Indeed, grocers and food brands alike are increasingly trying out video content to drive purchases.

Earlier this year, for example, The Fresh Market, a supermarket chain with 159 stores across 22 states, expanded its partnership with video commerce solution provider Firework, creating a retail media network featuring live, shoppable video content, such as recipes and tutorials, on the grocer’s digital channels.

Yuni Sameshima, CEO and co-founder of contextual commerce tech provider Chicory, which makes recipe content shoppable, discussed how the space has been growing in an interview with PYMNTS earlier this year.

“In the past year, we’ve seen a nearly 20% increase in what we add to carts — people adding products to their basket through our network,” Sameshima said. “And we’ve seen increased traffic on recipe sites towards the end of the year this year.”

However, the study’s findings may not bode particularly well for major grocer Albertsons, which is trying out shoppable Facebook and Instagram ads. The study found that only 29% of social media shoppers made food and beverage purchases via Instagram and just 23% via Facebook.

“Our pilot is replacing traditional digital circular ads with dynamic ad campaigns across Facebook and Instagram to meet more consumers where they are. … We are merging product and promotional data to enable advanced targeting, actionable content and measurable performance,” Albertsons Media Collective stated in a recent LinkedIn post.