Social Commerce 2025: Leveraging Viral Demand – Securing Loyalty at Checkout

Studies demonstrate BNPL at checkout has become standard. Merchants not integrating this option risk failing to fully meet customer expectations while losing revenue. What proves decisive: how merchants maintain control over brand leadership, data sovereignty, and customer experience even during high virality. Yet viral peaks remain typically short-term – true value emerges only when first-time buyers become loyal customers.

What Social Commerce Means for Large Merchants Today

After years of stagnation, the BEVH 2024/25 report signals positive momentum for merchants with 1.1% revenue growth. Social commerce on platforms like TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube has long evolved from marketing experiments to full-fledged sales channels. 78% of Germans (approximately 65.5 million people) regularly use social networks, now spending nearly one-third of daily online time across an average 5.5 platforms.

This opens enormous opportunities for merchants while simultaneously increasing complexity: viral demand proves barely plannable, testing checkout processes and payment infrastructure. Companies must ensure customers aren’t redirected to platform-owned checkouts where margins disappear and valuable customer data remains with platforms. Those retaining customer journey control can transform reach into sustainable revenue – securing brand loyalty long-term

Key Facts

• Social commerce represents a fixed 2025 commerce strategy component, not just marketing
• Viral demand brings opportunities but demands stable checkout and payment systems
• Control over customer data and brand presence determines long-term success
• Merchants must integrate social commerce into complete customer journey

According to HDE, total online revenue rises to approximately €92.4 billion in 2025, a clear signal for sustainable social commerce opportunities.

How Viral Demand Functions in Practice

That social commerce represents no marginal phenomenon becomes very clear through 2025 developments. What was once dismissed as individual hype now forms part of daily business: a viral TikTok video suffices, and suddenly thousands of people order identical products within minutes. For merchants, this means both opportunity and risk: revenue surges yes – but also enormous logistical and technical burdens. Those prepared here can profit – those unprepared risk losing customer trust in the worst cases.

Important remains the fact that these peaks prove valuable for awareness but don’t automatically drive sustainable revenue. Several current examples demonstrate how rapidly and unpredictably this mechanism functions.

TikTok Shop as Growth Engine

In 2025’s first half, TikTok Shop doubled global gross merchandise value to $26.2 billion, having reached $33.2 billion total in 2024. On Black Friday 2024 alone, TikTok Shop achieved $100 million revenue – a value likely rising in 2025. Die Welt reports that TikTok Shop has been active in Germany since March 2025, with 21.8 million adult users already.

Beauty Brands at Second-Rate Speed

In Britain, TikTok Shop now ranks as the fourth-largest beauty retailer. Certain products sometimes sell every second. Wonderskin brought 300,000 units of viral lip stain to market in record time in 2024 – a prime example of real-time social commerce.

Influencer Marketing on Record Course

The global influencer marketing market will grow to $32.5 billion by end-2025 (2024: $24 billion). Top campaigns achieve up to 20:1 ROI, and nearly half of all consumers purchase monthly through influencer recommendations. Virality has long become a fixed value chain component.

Social Media as Discovery Channel

82% of consumers discover or research products via social platforms. Gen Z especially uses social media no longer just for exchange but as a primary search engine: YouTube (70%), Instagram (60%), and TikTok (55%) clearly dominate. Those absent here simply don’t exist.

BNPL at Checkout: Why Flexibility Matters for Social Commerce

Impulse purchases reached new dimensions in 2025: the ‘I want this immediately’ feeling triggered by posts or livestreams has become everyday reality. In such moments, checkout flexibility determines whether clicks become purchases. BNPL has evolved from an optional supplement to an indispensable standard. A market study forecasts approximately $69.55 billion in BNPL volume in Germany for 2025 – a clear signal of growing importance.

BNPL Advantages in Social Commerce

• Conversion increases between 20-30%
• Up to 35% fewer cart abandonments
• Approximately 40% higher average order values
• Consumer expectation: BNPL represents standard, not extra

MarketResearchFuture describes expected long-term CAGR of nearly 15% – clear indication of sustainable trend. When BNPL disappears from checkout, not only does revenue vanish – merchants risk failing to meet central customer expectations.

Which Risks Emerge Through Platform Checkouts?

The prospect of completely entrusting checkout and transactions to platforms may initially seem tempting. Less effort, simple integration, immediate reach – yet risks can prove substantial and merit careful consideration. Merchants who choose platform checkouts become dependent on their rules, fees, and algorithms. Short-term, this secures revenue – long-term, platform checkouts can weaken brand presence when merchants become too dependent on external solutions.

Risks prove multi-layered: from margin losses through revenue-sharing to loss of valuable customer data forming foundations for CRM, retention, and personalized marketing. Additionally comes brand dilution risk: consumers remember platforms, not brands where they purchased. For merchants with established brand values, this can become genuine strategic risk, as can missing influence on repurchase rates.

Where Loyalty Decides: Beyond Checkout

The checkout moment matters, yet it doesn’t mark the customer journey’s end – only the beginning. Viral peaks in social commerce bring many first-time buyers to shops, yet without sustainable post-purchase processes, effects evaporate. Here determines whether spontaneous clicks become long-term customer relationships.

These values demonstrate: short-term attention and virality matter, but true economic power emerges through strong customer loyalty and recurring purchases. For loyalty success, merchants must take post-purchase seriously. Processes around returns, payment reminders, complaints, and customer communication determine whether trust builds or dissipates.

Riverty’s Merchant-First Difference

Many BNPL providers focus on purchase moments – conversion, cart values, abandonment rates. Riverty goes further. With the merchant-first approach, not only checkout remains in merchant branding but the entire post-purchase phase centers on brands. Thus Riverty translates general post-purchase success factors into concrete solutions.

Riverty Merchant-First Approach Advantage

• Dispute hub: Central platform handling complaints transparently and efficiently
• Branded invoices & emails: All communication occurs in merchant name, strengthening brand loyalty
• Insights & analytics: Merchants access valuable data for promoting repeat purchases and targeting customer groups

Riverty thus positions itself as a partner for sustainable growth. Viral peaks deliver reach, BNPL lowers checkout barriers – but only through combining Riverty’s merchant-first features does single purchase become a loyal customer relationship.

2026 Outlook: Social Commerce Matures

In 2026, social commerce will no longer be viewed merely as short-term sales channels living from viral trends. Instead, it develops into a fixed component of large merchant and brand strategic roadmaps. Platforms like TikTok, Instagram, or new social media players will increasingly operate professionally – with clear commerce structures, own marketplace solutions, and tighter content-checkout connections.

For companies, this means: social commerce must be embedded into the complete customer journey rather than isolated as a marketing gimmick. Stripe forecasts $1.23 trillion global social commerce volume for 2025 with strong user growth – context where German merchants should also strategically participate.

Transform Viral Demand Into Sustainable Growth Now

Riverty offers BNPL models securing brand control while making social commerce 2025 a growth channel beyond moments. What proves decisive: not only checkout but post-purchase experience – from returns through communication – fostering loyalty and driving repeat purchases.

Viral demand needn’t remain a flash in the pan. With Riverty BNPL, merchants leverage social commerce peaks, meet customer expectations, and create foundations for loyal relationships. Get advice now!