Tweeting for Retail - it works...

Capturing the specific business value of having a Twitter account can be a challenging task but a recent report provides some useful evidence for the retail industry.  A study polled 2,600 people who were exposed to at least one tweet posted by a retail company between August and October 2012.  The 665 retail sites incorporated included heavyweights such as Apple, Amazon, Groupon, Pottery Barn and Walmart.

Primary conclusions: 

Exposure to tweets leads to higher retail site visitation. A significant percentage (89.9%) of general Internet users visited at least one of the study's retail websites.  However, both the exposed and control Twitter user groups visited retail websites at a higher rate – 95.2% and 94.4%, respectively. Making Don Sexton proud, both of these results were significant at a 95% confidence level.

'Consumers exposed to retail tweets are even more likely to purchase. When looking at the rate of purchase at retail websites, the study showed an even larger increase when comparing Twitter users to the average Internet user than when looking at general site visitation. Overall, 26.9% of U.S. Internet users purchased something from a retail website during the study period. However, Twitter users purchased from the same sites at a rate of 33.4% and those Twitter users who were exposed to a retail Tweet purchased at a 38.9% rate. That’s an 1.4X and 1.2X increase respectively.  Again, both were statistically significant from the average Internet purchase rate at a 95% confidence level.'

Twitter works for both retail product awareness and traffic but more importantly, it helps drive purchases.  Now we have more evidence to share with the Marketing teams.