How many people in Germany shop via Instagram, TikTok and other social networks?

The 29% and the 7% measure different things. The 29% covers anyone who has ever bought through a social network, either in the app or after being redirected to an online shop. The 7% comes from the question of where people frequently shop online. Its only examples of social commerce are services inside the platforms themselves, Facebook Marketplace and Instagram Shop.

Someone who orders from an online shop after following a link in a post may give that shop as the answer here, a large marketplace for example. Bitkom does not report how often people buy through links from social networks.

The question was which networks people had ever bought something through, with multiple answers allowed. The study report bases the “Overall” column on 1,072 online shoppers, while the press release gives the same values for all internet users. The per-platform figures for 16- to 29-year-olds come from the press release. For this age group the study report only says “nearly half” and refers to the Bitkom Dataverse for details.

Under 30, the ranking changes: Facebook drops from second to fourth place. Instagram reaches more than a third, and YouTube and TikTok come in at roughly two to two and a half times their overall figure. Facebook reaches 17% among under-30s, only a little more than overall. For Facebook, the question wording also counts buying on Facebook Marketplace.

These questions went only to people who had already bought through social networks, 328 of the 1,120 respondents according to the press release. Only 10% of them trust influencers more than conventional product reviews. Bitkom sums up these answers as follows: social networks are perceived mainly as channels for product discovery, inspiration and advertising. More figures on trust and on brands advertising with influencers are in the guide on influencer recommendations.

Bitkom counts two routes as buying through social networks: the platform’s own shopping feature, such as TikTok Shop or Facebook Marketplace, and a redirect to an external online shop. Neither the press release nor the study report shows how purchases split between the two.

For creators this means: if someone taps the link in your story or under your video and then buys in the online shop, the question wording counts it as social commerce just like a purchase in TikTok Shop. A link in your bio, on the other hand, is not a post, and the question wording does not settle how respondents count such purchases.

• The respondents were internet users aged 16 and over in an online panel, not the whole population. Bitkom Research weighted the data using structural data on internet use from the Arbeitsgemeinschaft Media-Analyse (Working Group for Media Analysis).
• The survey ran from late September to mid-October 2025 (calendar weeks 40 and 41). The German press release gives 8 January 2025 as its date in the text, so cite the survey period instead.
• “Have bought at least once” says nothing about how often people buy through social networks or how much they spend.
• Bitkom states a statistical margin of error of plus or minus 3 percent for the total sample. Instagram (15%) and Facebook (14%) are therefore practically level. Subgroups such as 16- to 29-year-olds include fewer respondents, so their figures are less precise.
• Other studies ask different questions, for example only online shoppers or only about recent months, and so arrive at different figures. Compare numbers only when the question and the base are the same.

wyrld is a social commerce platform from Hamburg. To recommend a product, you paste the link to something you actually use or pick it from the catalogue. wyrld recognises the brand, name and variant, looks for the same item across more than 90,000 partner shops, Amazon included, and automatically creates an affiliate link for every offer it finds. You don’t have to sign up with any networks yourself.

The products sit in your own storefront, and you put its link in your bio. That fits the Bitkom figures above: people discover products on social media, while most of their regular online shopping happens on large marketplaces. Where wyrld finds a product in several shops, your community sees the offers side by side with prices and buys directly from the shop rather than in the network’s app, at no extra cost. The cheapest new offer is labelled “Best price”. For 65% of online shoppers in Germany, the lowest price is a decisive factor when choosing a shop, according to a 2022 Bitkom survey of 1,123 internet users.

Depending on the shop, you earn per click, per sale or both, with a credit note every month. wyrld is free for creators, and the creator terms don’t require exclusivity, so you can use wyrld alongside programmes you already belong to. If you work with a talent agency, it maintains your storefront with you from its own dashboard and sees the same figures. Any commission share you’ve agreed with it is deducted from your earnings in the monthly settlement, and you each receive a separate credit note.