Not long ago, product discovery largely began with search engines, ecommerce platforms, television advertisements or banner ads. Today, it increasingly starts with a scroll. A creator demonstrating a skincare product, a short video reviewing a smartphone, or an influencer unboxing a new gadget can shape consumer choices in ways traditional advertising often could not.
What began as a platform for social interaction is rapidly evolving into a marketplace for discovery, influence and transactions.
A Meta-Ipsos study, which surveyed more than 4,000 respondents across 23 cities spanning metros, Tier-2, Tier-3 and rural India, found that 97 per cent of users watch videos on social platforms daily. More significantly, the study highlighted the growing role of short-form video in the consumer purchase journey.
According to the findings, Reels influences 81 per cent of product discovery, 66 per cent of product consideration and 47 per cent of purchase decisions among surveyed users.
The shift is also reflected in advertiser spending patterns. According to Snapchat’s 2026 report, the number of advertisers on the platform in India has grown tenfold over the past two years, while the number of advertisers spending across all four quarters has tripled. Snapchat attributed the growth to rising adoption of immersive advertising formats, the emergence of Chat as a high-attention advertising surface, and investments in AI-powered targeting capabilities.
For businesses, these numbers point to a larger transformation. Social media is no longer merely a channel for marketing products; it is increasingly becoming the place where consumers discover, evaluate and decide what to buy. In effect, the scroll is turning into the storefront.
From ads to algorithms: The rise of discovery commerce
The growing influence of social media on purchasing decisions reflects a broader shift in how consumers discover products online.
For decades, the path to purchase followed a relatively predictable sequence. Brands invested in advertising, consumers encountered those advertisements through television, print, search engines or websites, and purchase decisions followed later. Discovery and commerce were often separate events, taking place across different platforms and over extended periods.
Short-form video is changing that dynamic.
Consumers no longer need to visit a marketplace or actively search for a product to discover it. Instead, recommendations increasingly emerge within social media feeds, where algorithms surface content based on user interests and engagement patterns.
In many cases, product discovery occurs while users are consuming content rather than actively shopping.
This phenomenon is often described as discovery commerce — a model in which content, creators and platform algorithms play a central role in introducing products to potential buyers.
According to the Social Commerce Playbook published by Economy Insights in September 2025, recommendation algorithms are increasingly matching products with highly specific consumer interests, enabling brands to reach audiences at moments of relevance rather than intent.
As a result, the traditional marketing funnel is becoming more compressed. Content drives discovery, discovery influences consideration, and consideration can quickly translate into a purchase decision, often within the same platform ecosystem. The funnel has not disappeared; it has increasingly moved inside the feed.
The trend is particularly significant in India because of the scale and spread of video consumption. According to the Meta-Ipsos study, daily video engagement has reached 98 per cent in urban India and 94 per cent in rural India, suggesting that short-form video consumption is now nearly universal across geographies.
The report notes that India’s video-first transformation is being driven not only by metropolitan markets but also by users across smaller cities and rural regions.
The evolution extends beyond content feeds. Snapchat has expanded Chat as an advertising surface, stating that Sponsored Snaps, which appear within active conversations, generate 2.5 times higher brand awareness than traditional in-feed formats.
The move reflects a broader industry trend: platforms are embedding discovery and commerce opportunities across multiple user touchpoints rather than limiting them to conventional advertising placements.
For brands, the opportunity for product discovery is no longer confined to consumers in large urban centres. As social commerce expands beyond metros, platforms are becoming an increasingly important gateway to the country’s next wave of digital consumers.
Why businesses are paying attention
Marketers have always followed attention. Right now, attention lives in short-form video, and the numbers are compelling enough for marketing budgets to follow.
According to the Meta-Ipsos study, 84 per cent of Gen Z consumers discover new products and brands through social platforms. Among rural users, that figure stands at 73 per cent.
These are not passive audiences; they are active discovery surfaces.
The same study found that Reels delivers nearly 60 per cent higher creator engagement than other surveyed short-form video platforms, making it a primary surface for creator-led storytelling and brand discovery.
The convergence is not limited to one platform.
According to Snapchat’s 2026 report, with more than 250 million users in India, Snapchat sits at the centre of how Gen Z discovers, communicates and engages with brands, reinforcing that the shift towards social-led discovery is a platform-wide phenomenon rather than a single-platform story.
The report also noted that while Gen Z pays up to 34 per cent less attention to ads on conventional social platforms compared with Millennials, immersive and creator-native formats continue to drive strong engagement and measurable business outcomes.
For established brands, this represents a shift in how media budgets are allocated.
For D2C startups and smaller businesses, however, it is something more significant.
A brand that could not afford television or print advertising can now reach millions through a single well-placed creator partnership or a piece of content that resonates with the algorithm.
The economics of customer acquisition are changing.
Creator-led content, when executed well, lowers the cost of reaching relevant consumers. It replaces the broad reach of traditional paid media with something narrower and often more trusted: a recommendation from someone the viewer already follows.
According to Billo’s 2026 social commerce trends analysis, social platforms have become the primary entry point for product discovery, with short-form video, user-generated content and creator-led content shaping purchase decisions long before checkout.
The report noted that entertainment and live shopping are increasingly collapsing the gap between viewing and buying by embedding commerce directly into content.
The winners of the shift
Several groups stand to benefit from this structural change.
Creators
Creators are no longer just content producers. They are trusted commerce intermediaries.
Their audiences follow them not because of polished production values but because of perceived authenticity. When a creator recommends a product, it often feels less like advertising and more like advice.
This trust is commercially valuable, and platforms are building infrastructure around it through affiliate programmes and revenue-sharing models.
Direct-to-consumer brands
D2C brands may be among the biggest winners.
Short-form video allows brands to tell their story, demonstrate products and generate demand without the traditional costs associated with retail shelf space, print advertising or large media budgets.
The platforms provide reach, creators provide credibility, and algorithms provide targeting.
For emerging brands, this combination can be powerful.
Social platforms
Social platforms themselves are transforming their business models.
What began as advertising-led businesses is increasingly becoming commerce infrastructure.
The more of the purchase journey that happens within a platform — discovery, consideration and transaction — the more valuable that platform becomes to brands.
The race to build native shopping experiences, affiliate systems and creator commerce tools reflects this shift.
Instagram has expanded creator affiliate programmes and shopping features, while YouTube has integrated shopping tools that allow creators to tag products directly within videos.
Rather than directing users to external websites, platforms are increasingly trying to keep discovery, engagement and transactions within their own ecosystems.
Influencer marketing agencies
Influencer marketing agencies are evolving from talent managers into performance marketers.
The shift from impressions to conversions is changing how these businesses operate.
The question is no longer, “How many people saw this?” but “How many people bought something because of it?”
The Meta-Ipsos study notes that creators are no longer simply content producers; they are trusted discovery engines actively shaping culture, trends and brand choices across Gen Z, women, rural India and premium audiences.
The agency sitting between a brand and that creator network is increasingly sitting between a brand and its next customer.
As Saugato Bhowmik, director of CPG, D2C and automotive at Meta India, put it: “Creators, culture and commerce are converging on Reels in ways we haven’t seen before. For brands, this isn’t just a content play — it’s an always-on content-to-commerce play.”
The shifting role of ecommerce platforms
The shift also has implications for traditional ecommerce platforms.
If product discovery increasingly begins on social media, marketplaces such as Amazon and Myntra risk losing their position as the starting point of the shopping journey.
Consumers may still complete purchases on these platforms, but purchase intent is increasingly being shaped elsewhere — through creators, communities and short-form video content.
Marketplaces are already adapting.
Amazon has expanded creator-led initiatives through features such as Amazon Live, influencer storefronts and video-based product discovery experiences.
Myntra has invested in content-led shopping through offerings such as Myntra Studio, Myntra Minis and live-commerce formats that blend creator recommendations with commerce.
The convergence highlights a broader industry trend.
As social platforms add shopping tools and affiliate programmes, ecommerce companies are investing in content and creator ecosystems.
The competition is no longer limited to who completes the transaction. It increasingly extends to who influences the purchase decision in the first place.
Are social platforms becoming the new shopping malls?
For decades, shopping malls served as centres of product discovery.
Consumers often arrived with a broad intention to browse, encountered products they were not actively looking for, and made purchases influenced by what they saw along the way.
Discovery and transaction happened within the same environment.
Social platforms are increasingly replicating that dynamic in the digital world.
Instead of store displays and window shopping, consumers are exposed to products through creators, recommendations and short-form videos embedded within their feeds.
The difference is that discovery is now guided by algorithms that personalise what each user sees.
Research points to a broader shift in consumer behaviour.
A Bain & Company report on how India shops online found that peers, communities and content are becoming increasingly important in shaping purchase decisions, particularly among the next wave of online shoppers.
The report also noted strong growth in video consumption across Tier-2 and smaller cities, alongside rising engagement with livestreaming, influencer-led content and visual search tools.
This evolution has implications beyond social media.
If purchase intent is increasingly formed through content and creator recommendations, traditional ecommerce platforms risk losing their role as the primary starting point of the shopping journey.
Consumers may still complete transactions on marketplaces, but the discovery process is increasingly taking place elsewhere.
The comparison with shopping malls is not perfect, but it captures an important shift.
Where this leaves us
The shift underway is not simply about a new advertising format or a growing preference for short-form video.
It reflects a broader change in how consumers discover products online.
Rather than beginning with a search query or a visit to a marketplace, product discovery is increasingly taking place within content feeds, where creators, communities and algorithms shape consumer interest long before a purchase decision is made.
This has implications across the digital economy.
Brands are adapting their marketing strategies, creators are becoming a more integral part of the commerce ecosystem, and platforms are investing in tools that bring discovery and transactions closer together.
In the process, the boundaries between content, advertising and commerce are becoming increasingly blurred.
Whether social platforms eventually become full-fledged shopping destinations remains an open question.
What is becoming harder to dispute, however, is their growing influence over how purchase intent is formed.
If shopping malls once served as centres of discovery in the physical world, social platforms are increasingly emerging as their digital equivalent.
The battle is no longer limited to who completes the transaction. Increasingly, it is about who shapes purchase intent in the first place.
That may prove to be the most valuable position in the modern digital economy.
