Mostly in two places. 43 percent of social purchases complete inside the social app and 41 percent on the brand's own website, with 12 percent on a marketplace and 3 percent in a physical store.
In-app checkout and the brand's own site are running neck and neck, and together they account for roughly eight in ten purchases. A brand that offers only one of those paths leaves the other half of buyers to find their own way, and some of them will not.
The 12 percent who finish on a marketplace are the leak worth watching. They are a different, lower-value kind of buyer, and what they cost you is detailed in the full report. The practical move is to make both the in-app and the brand-site path frictionless so the sale closes where the shopper already is.
The full data, including the cross-tabs behind these findings, is in the Social Commerce Intelligence Report 2026. The free executive summary covers the headline findings. The full report (PDF) is available at three license tiers.
ScrollSignal is an independent B2B research firm publishing original consumer research on social commerce. No platform funding. No sponsored findings. n = 1,000 active US social media shoppers, ages 18 to 64, fielded April 2026, stratified to US Census on age, gender, and region.