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46 social commerce and UGC statistics for 2026, each traced to its source

46 social commerce, UGC, video and review statistics for 2026. Each has a named primary source, a year and a link. We cut 83 lines we could not trace.

Rohin AggarwalRohin AggarwalCo-founder & CTO · Idukki.io · October 2, 2025 · 9 min readLast updated
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This page used to list 100 statistics. On 14 October 2026 we checked each one against its original source. 83 did not survive. Some traced only to other stats roundups. Some carried the wrong year or the wrong number. What is left is 46 lines, each with a named source, a year and a link.

In this article

  • $15.82B

    TikTok Shop US sales in 2025

    eMarketer, 2025

  • 102.4%

    Conversion lift among visitors who interact with UGC

    PowerReviews, 2023

  • 79%

    Say UGC highly impacts their purchase decisions

    Stackla, 2019

  • 41%

    Of 18 to 34s have used GenAI to search for a product

    Bazaarvoice, 2025

Four headline numbers. Full attribution in the tables and the source list.

We make Idukki, a UGC and shoppable video platform. None of the figures below come from Idukki data. They are grouped into five topics: social shopping, UGC and conversion, trust, video and reviews.

Social shopping and market size

#StatisticSourceYear
1TikTok Shop US sales reached $15.82B in 2025, up 108%.eMarketer press release2025
2TikTok Shop held 18.2% of US social commerce sales in 2025.eMarketer press release2025
3eMarketer expects that share to reach 24.1% by 2027.eMarketer press release2025
4TikTok Shop US sales are forecast to pass $20B in 2026.eMarketer press release2025
5Lines 1 and 2 put total US social commerce near $87B in 2025.Our arithmetic on eMarketer figures2025
6US social commerce sales are forecast to pass $100B in 2026.eMarketer chart2025
739% of shoppers use social media for product discovery and research.Bazaarvoice Shopper Experience Index Vol. 18, 8,000+ shoppers2024
831% buy directly through social platforms.Bazaarvoice SEI Vol. 182024
9Shoppers who never bought on social fell from 55% in 2021 to 24%.Bazaarvoice SEI Vol. 182024
10Almost 1 in 4 used GenAI over a search engine to look for a product.Bazaarvoice Shopper Experience Index 2025, 7,000+ consumers2025
11Among 18 to 34 year olds, that figure is 41%.Bazaarvoice SEI 20252025
1255% trust GenAI shopping tools for at least some tasks. Among 18 to 34s it is 75%.Bazaarvoice SEI 20252025
eMarketer figures are forecasts and estimates. Bazaarvoice figures are survey answers.

Conversion

#StatisticSourceYear
13Visitors who interact with UGC convert 102.4% higher than average.PowerReviews, How UGC Impacts Conversion, 2023 edition (2022 data, 1.5M product pages)2023
14The same lift was 100.6% in 2021.PowerReviews, 2023 edition2023
15Visitors who interact with customer photos and videos convert 103.9% higher.PowerReviews, 2023 edition2023
16Seeing UGC without interacting with it came with a 3.8% lift.PowerReviews, 2023 edition2023
17Bazaarvoice reports a 144% conversion lift and a 162% revenue-per-visitor lift tied to UGC.Bazaarvoice Shopper Experience Index 20222022
18Brands report live commerce conversion rates approaching 30%.McKinsey, It's showtime!2021
19McKinsey puts that at up to ten times conventional ecommerce.McKinsey, It's showtime!2021
20Beauty retailer Douglas reports live-show conversion rates of up to 40%.McKinsey, It's showtime!2021
21China's live commerce market was about $171B in 2020.McKinsey, It's showtime!2021
Interaction lifts compare people who chose to engage. Engaged shoppers were likelier to buy already.

Line 16 is the one to plan around. Putting UGC on a page moved conversion 3.8%. The big lifts belong to shoppers who opened it. So placement and tap targets matter. Model your own numbers with the UGC revenue calculator.

Trust

#StatisticSourceYear
2279% say UGC highly impacts their purchase decisions, up from 60% in 2017.Stackla, Bridging the Gap2019
2313% say content from a brand is impactful.Stackla, Bridging the Gap2019
2490% say authenticity matters when choosing brands to support, up from 86% in 2017.Stackla, Bridging the Gap2019
25Consumers are 2.4 times likelier to call UGC most authentic than brand-made content.Stackla, Bridging the Gap2019
2692% of marketers think most or all of their content reads as authentic.Stackla, Bridging the Gap2019
2751% of consumers say fewer than half of brands achieve that.Stackla, Bridging the Gap2019
Stackla surveyed 1,590 consumers and 150 marketers in the US, UK and Australia. Stackla is now part of Nosto.

The trust figures are seven years old. We kept them because no newer survey with a published method replaced them. If you quote one, say 2019.

Video

#StatisticSourceYear
2885% say a video has convinced them to buy a product or service.Wyzowl, State of Video Marketing 20262026
2996% have watched an explainer video to learn about a product or service.Wyzowl, State of Video Marketing 20262026
3063% would most like to learn about a product from a short video.Wyzowl, State of Video Marketing 20262026
3112% picked a text article for the same job.Wyzowl, State of Video Marketing 20262026
3284% want to see more video from brands in 2026.Wyzowl, State of Video Marketing 20262026
3367% of Australian users say TikTok inspires them to shop when not planning to.TikTok, #TikTokMadeMeBuyIt research2022
34Over 130M accounts tap to reveal product tags on Instagram Shopping posts each month.Instagram Business blog2019
Wyzowl's 2026 survey had 266 respondents in late 2025. Treat its figures as indicative.

Reviews

#StatisticSourceYear
35A product with five reviews is 270% likelier to be bought than one with none.Spiegel Research Center, Northwestern University2017
36The lift was 190% for lower-priced products and 380% for higher-priced ones.Spiegel Research Center2017
37Purchase likelihood peaks at average ratings of 4.0 to 4.7 stars.Spiegel Research Center2017
3897% of consumers use reviews to guide local purchase decisions.BrightLocal, Local Consumer Review Survey2026
3941% always read reviews when browsing businesses, up from 29% a year earlier.BrightLocal, Local Consumer Review Survey2026
40Google's share as a review source fell from 83% in 2025 to 71%.BrightLocal, Local Consumer Review Survey2026
41Consumers use six review sites on average.BrightLocal, Local Consumer Review Survey2026
4288% would use a business that answers every review. 47% would use one that answers none.BrightLocal, Local Consumer Review Survey2024
4396% look for negative reviews at least sometimes, up from 85% in 2018.PowerReviews survey of 6,538 shoppers2021
4452% seek out one-star reviews. Among Millennials it is 60%.PowerReviews survey of 6,538 shoppers2021
4546% are suspicious of a product with a perfect 5.0 average rating.PowerReviews survey of 6,538 shoppers2021
46Shoppers who read reviews but never write them fell from 46% to 28%.Bazaarvoice SEI Vol. 182024
BrightLocal asks about local businesses. PowerReviews surveyed opted-in US grocery shoppers.

Lines 37 and 45 point the same way. A perfect score reads as less believable than a 4.6. Photo reviews are compared with text reviews in photo and video reviews vs text reviews.

How to quote these numbers

  • Quote the year. A 2017 study can still hold. Say 2017 so your reader can judge.
  • Quote the base. "Visitors who interact with UGC" is a smaller group than "all visitors".
  • Name the vendor. Bazaarvoice, PowerReviews, Stackla and Wyzowl sell products tied to what they measure.
  • Open the link. If the source page does not show the number, do not use it.

FAQs

  • How big is US social commerce in 2026?

    eMarketer forecasts US social commerce sales will pass $100 billion in 2026. TikTok Shop alone sold $15.82 billion in 2025, up 108%. That was 18.2% of US social commerce.

  • Does user-generated content increase conversion rates?

    PowerReviews found visitors who interact with UGC convert 102.4% higher than average, from 2022 data. Visitors who were shown UGC but did not interact saw a 3.8% lift.

  • Why did this page drop from 100 statistics to 46?

    We checked every line against its original source in October 2026. In all, 83 lines failed. They traced only to roundups, had the wrong year or had no number. We kept 17 original lines, 14 of them corrected. We added 29 lines from the same primary sources.

  • How many reviews does a product need?

    Spiegel Research Center studied this in 2017. A product with five reviews was 270% likelier to be bought than one with none. The benefit of each extra review falls quickly after the first five.

Sources

  1. 1eMarketer: TikTok Shop makes up nearly 20% of social commerce in 2025 (9 December 2025) · Lines 1 to 5.
  2. 2eMarketer chart: US social commerce sales will surge past $100 billion in 2026 (November 2025) · Line 6.
  3. 3Bazaarvoice Shopper Experience Index Vol. 18 (19 November 2024) · Lines 7 to 9 and 46. Fieldwork by Savanta, September 2024.
  4. 4Bazaarvoice Shopper Experience Index 2025 (30 September 2025) · Lines 10 to 12.
  5. 5PowerReviews: How UGC Impacts Conversion, 2023 edition · Lines 13 to 16. 1.5M product pages across 1,200+ sites in 2022.
  6. 6Bazaarvoice: Exploring the Shopper Experience Index 2022 · Line 17.
  7. 7McKinsey: It's showtime! How live commerce is transforming the shopping experience (2021) · Lines 18 to 21.
  8. 8Stackla: Bridging the Gap press release (20 February 2019) · Lines 22 to 27.
  9. 9Stackla: Bridging the Gap data report (2019, PDF) · Line 25 and the survey base.
  10. 10Wyzowl: Video Marketing Statistics 2026 · Lines 28 to 32. 266 respondents, late 2025.
  11. 11TikTok newsroom: #TikTokMadeMeBuyIt shows the power of TikTok (24 May 2022) · Line 33. The ebook places this figure in its Australian section.
  12. 12Instagram Business: Testing Instagram Shopping posts as ads (2019) · Line 34.
  13. 13Spiegel Research Center: How Online Reviews Influence Sales (2017) · Lines 35 to 37. Data from three retailers, built with PowerReviews.
  14. 14BrightLocal: Local Consumer Review Survey 2026 · Lines 38 to 41.
  15. 15BrightLocal: Local Consumer Review Survey 2024 · Line 42.
  16. 16PowerReviews: survey of more than 6,500 consumers (20 May 2021) · Lines 43 to 45. Fielded April 2021.

More research is in the Idukki reports library. The ROI side is in how to measure UGC ROI.

#Statistics#Research#Reference

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2 pieces in this cluster

These long-form pieces on the Idukki blog link back to this article, go deeper on the cluster.

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