As haul videos on TikTok, YouTube and Instagram drive sales for brands such as Shein and H&M, the phenomena of social media influencers has spurred an astonishing 74 percent of Americans to make purchases, according to new research from casino.org.
The online gaming group surveyed more than 3,000 Americans ages 18-65 about their online shopping and social media habits. They found that consumers spend an average of $36.11 per month on influencer-inspired purchases, with shoppers in Oregon leading the pack at $97 per month, followed closely by Oklahoma at $94 and Alaska at $85.
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The survey found that 48 percent of clothing purchases were made as a result of seeing influencer content or ads on social media. And hauls—videos showing off new and usually large purchases of clothing, makeup, home goods and other consumer products—are fueling many of those sales.
According to the survey, 29 percent of consumers “love” to watch clothing hauls on social media. Amazon hauls lead in popularity at 48 percent, followed by grocery hauls at 35 percent. Target hauls are favored by 28 percent of consumers, with hauls from discount brands Shein and Temu ranking just above luxury brands in popularity. Inexpensive items tend to work better for hauls, as it’s easier to purchase a higher volume of product.
Casino.org found that women lead men in influencer-based purchases with 80 percent saying they’d shopped for something they saw on social media. But 65 percent of men admitted doing the same, and on average male respondents spent 30 percent more on influencer-inspired products than women. Both men and women said clothing was their top category for influencer-based purchases.
Breaking it down by region, the survey found that residents of Nevada are most influenced by influencers, with 88 percent of respondents from that state saying they regularly buy things they saw on social media. Louisiana and Missouri came in second with 83 percent of shoppers in both states admitting to purchasing products hawked by influencers.
And while TikTok gets the most buzz, the survey found that YouTube actually ranked as the top social media platform spurring shopping, with 31 percent of respondents saying they buy products seen on the video site. TikTok came in second with 27 percent of consumers shopping its haul content, and Instagram ranked third at 24 percent. As of this writing, #haul accounts for 709,000 videos on YouTube and has 65.4 billion views on TikTok.
Casino.org’s report comes on the heels of the United States Census Bureau’s retail sales report for the 2023 holiday season, which saw online sales increasing by 1.5 percent.
