50% of Australians are now discovering products through social media. And around
By Teresasperti · October 14, 2026 · Curated by George's Blog
50% of Australians are now discovering products through social media.
And around 60% take some form of action after that discovery – searching on Google, heading to an AI platform, checking a retailer site or looking for reviews and UGC.
That tells you something important about the role social is already playing in the path to purchase.
But Australia is still relatively early in the evolution of social commerce.
In Southeast Asia, TikTok Shop has captured around 25% of eCommerce in just four years, with discovery, influence and transaction increasingly happening inside the same platform. I
In the latest episode of Unpacking the Digital Shelf - APAC Edition, I sat down with Kate Musgrove, Managing Director APAC at Bazaarvoice.
We explored:
🌏 What Australian brands can learn from Southeast Asia’s much more mature social commerce ecosystem
🛒 Why creators are increasingly being treated as an extension of the sales channel, not simply a media investment
🔄 Why brands need to think beyond the 48-hour life of a social post and work creator content much harder across the shopper journey
⭐ Why fresh, diverse ratings, reviews and UGC matter for both discovery and conversion
🔎 Why accessibility is becoming critical as search engines and AI agents need to be able to actually find and interpret that content
🤖 How AI and agentic commerce could further collapse the boundaries between social, search and commerce
One thing is clear: creator and UGC investment is only becoming more important. The challenge for brands is making sure that investment works much harder than a single piece of content in a social feed.
Thanks Kate for a fantastic conversation.
🎧 Listen on Spotify: https://lnkd.in/g9krazY7;
🎧 Listen on Apple Podcasts: https://lnkd.in/gribxdEz
Arktic Fox | The Digital Shelf Institute | Mark Mansour | Lauren Livak Gilbert | Kat Matthews | Julien Walon Cohen