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Facebook leads the way for e-commerce log-ins

Thursday, May 1, 2014 - 11:13 by Mike Price

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A new report from Gigya has revealed that 77 per cent of the people who choose to log into a site which offers shopping online using a social media account are doing so through Facebook.

This is not surprising given the huge user base that the site has established in the ten years since it was created. But it does point to a change in the way that people are engaging with e-commerce sites.

In the past it was necessary for consumers to create lots of individual accounts with the different sites they wanted to use for safe shopping online. But the rise of social media means that a single Facebook account can now provide the information required to synchronise with a wide range of e-commerce outlets.

Facebook has even extended its tendrils into other types of sites and services, such as music streaming giant, Spotify.

Over half of all the world's active online shoppers now harness some form of social networking account when they want to sign up or sign in to a third party site, according to analysts. And at the moment, Facebook is well in the lead, ahead of Google+, Yahoo and Twitter.

This is good news for retailers as it means that they can simplify the process of getting new customers onboard, because anyone with a Facebook account can simply click to log in and all of their details will be available.

It also helps reaffirm the idea that Facebook will become a powerful tool for e-commerce marketing, as it has access to vast amounts of data relating to its users and can determine the kinds of ads and services it offers to them based on their likes, posts and past shopping habits over the next few years.