Ask a business owner about social commerce two years ago and most would have shrugged. In 2026 that has changed completely. UK social commerce sales are heading towards £12 billion this year, roughly four times what they were in 2023, and more than half of UK social media users have now bought something without ever leaving the app.
The shift is not only about volume. Buying now happens inside the feed, so the old journey from advert to website to basket has collapsed into a single tap. For a small business that is either a real opportunity or a quiet threat, depending entirely on whether your products are there at the moment somebody decides to buy.
That does not mean every business should rush in. Selling on social costs money in commission, content and time, and it suits some products far better than others. In this article we set out what social commerce actually involves in 2026, what it genuinely costs, and how to decide whether it deserves a place in your plan.
Social commerce is not the same thing as social media marketing, and confusing the two leads to poor decisions. Social media marketing builds awareness and sends people to your website. Social commerce keeps the whole transaction inside the platform, from discovery through to checkout, so the customer never lands on a page that you own.
That distinction matters more than it sounds. When somebody buys through TikTok Shop or Instagram, the platform holds the relationship, the payment details and often the contact details too. You get the sale, but you do not automatically get the email address, the retargeting audience or the repeat purchase that usually makes an online business profitable.
So the honest way to think about social commerce is as a customer acquisition channel rather than a replacement for your shop. It reaches people who were not searching for you and were never on your list. Our advice to clients is to treat it as the top of the funnel, then work hard to bring those buyers back onto ground you control.
TikTok Shop has become the loudest of the three by a distance. More than 300,000 UK small businesses were selling through it by the middle of this year, and the format rewards products that demonstrate well on video, sit roughly between £15 and £80, and can be bought on impulse. Several Welsh brands now take a serious share of their revenue from live selling alone.
Instagram suits a different rhythm. Shoppable posts, stories and reels work best for apparel, beauty, homeware and anything with a strong visual identity, and the audience tends to be slightly older and more considered than TikTok. It rarely produces sudden spikes, but it converts a warm following steadily, which is often the more useful outcome for an established brand.
Facebook still quietly outperforms both in certain sectors, particularly furniture, garden products, tools and anything bought by an audience over forty five. If you already run an online store, all three platforms can pull your catalogue in automatically and keep stock levels in step, which is where our e-commerce team always starts rather than building listings by hand.
The headline cost is commission. TikTok Shop UK standardised its fees in January, so most categories now pay around nine per cent of the full order value, including shipping and VAT, with a small number of categories qualifying for less. Add the per order service fee and the shipping contribution, and the true deduction usually lands a little above ten per cent.
Then come the costs that never appear in the case studies. Impulse buying drives higher return rates than search led buying, so build that into your margin rather than discovering it in month three. Content is the other big one, because the sellers who do well are producing several short videos every week, not posting occasionally and hoping for the best.
Run the sums before you commit. If your gross margin sits below about forty per cent, social commerce will struggle to pay for itself once commission, returns, content and your own hours are counted. Above that, and with a product that shows well on camera, the maths starts to work and the volume can be genuinely significant.
Social selling rewards a fairly specific profile. Physical products that photograph and film well, a price point low enough to buy without deliberating, reliable stock availability, and a margin with room in it. Beauty, food and drink, fashion, gifts, pet products and homeware all fit comfortably. If somebody can understand your product in fifteen seconds, you are in good shape.
It suits other businesses far less well. Services, high value considered purchases, anything made to order with a long lead time, and most business to business selling all sit awkwardly inside a format built for instant checkout. That does not mean social is wasted on you. It means the platform should send people to your site rather than take the payment itself.
If you think you fit, test it properly rather than half heartedly. Pick five or six of your strongest products, connect the catalogue to your store so stock and orders stay in one place, and commit to a full quarter before judging it. When we set this up for clients we run it through their existing platform, and our Shopify team can usually have a catalogue syncing within a day or two.
The gap between the shops that work and the ones that go quiet comes down to consistency more than creativity. Successful sellers post three to five short product videos a week, every week. They are not polished adverts. They are the product being used, unboxed, compared or explained by somebody who sounds like a real person rather than a brand.
Two tactics do most of the heavy lifting. The first is working with micro creators on affiliate terms, so you pay commission on sales rather than a flat fee for a post. The second is live selling, which still feels alien to most British business owners yet converts better than anything else on the platform. Start with one short weekly slot and improve from there.
The last piece is getting those buyers off the platform and onto your own list. Put a card in the parcel offering something genuinely worth having in exchange for an email address, then market to them properly from there. If you would like help deciding whether any of this is worth your time, you are welcome to talk it through with us.
Our honest answer for most small businesses is a qualified yes, with conditions attached. If you sell physical products with a healthy margin and you can commit to producing content weekly, social commerce is now too large a channel to ignore. If either of those is missing, you will spend money and attention for very little in return.
If it is not for you, the same effort spent elsewhere will go further. A faster website, better product pages, a properly worked email list and strong search visibility all compound over time in a way that a platform trend never does. Nothing about 2026 has changed the fact that the customers you own are worth more than the ones you rent.
At Primedia we help businesses across Wales work out where their next pound is best spent, then build and run the channel properly once the decision is made, whether that is social commerce, an online store or search. If you are weighing this up for the coming season, get in touch and we will give you a straight answer.
Social commerce is selling directly inside a social platform, so the customer discovers, chooses and pays without ever visiting your website. TikTok Shop, Instagram shopping and Facebook Shops are the main examples. It differs from social media marketing, which uses social posts and ads to drive traffic to a site you own.
Since the fee structure was standardised in January 2026, most UK categories pay around nine per cent commission on the full order value, including shipping and VAT. A small number of categories qualify for lower rates. There is also a modest per order service fee, so budget for a true deduction slightly above ten per cent.
No, and trying to usually spreads a small team too thinly. Start with the one platform where your customers already spend time and where your product suits the format, then add a second only once the first is running consistently and profitably. One channel done well beats three done occasionally.
It should not. Platform sales come with commission, limited customer data and rules that can change without warning. Treat social selling as a way to reach new buyers, and use your own site and email list to hold the relationship, take repeat orders and protect your margin over the long term.
Allow a full quarter of consistent activity before judging it. Most sellers see very little in the first few weeks while the algorithm learns which audiences respond to the product. Businesses that post several short videos a week and test creator partnerships typically reach a clear verdict, positive or negative, within three months.
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