A new report from Salesforce has found that people carrying out safe shopping online from mobile devices are increasingly likely to have had their spending decisions shaped by the social media sites they use.

13 per cent of m-commerce purchases were apparently generated by platforms like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter over the course of the lockdown period, while mobile orders as a whole were up by 57 per cent year on year.

The growth in m-commerce spending outstripped sales made via desktop and laptop computers, although this segment of the market still enjoyed a 43 per cent rise in activity over the past three months.

An impressive 63 per cent of all orders in the period covered by the report were therefore attributed to mobile phones, while tablets accounted for just five per cent of sales, showing just how much the market has shifted away from this once potent form factor.

The fact that most people use their mobile phones to access social media services explains why just one per cent of the traffic that social platforms generated for shopping sites came from PCs.

Analysts also looked into the extent to which consumers in the UK were looking to cross-border options when buying online during the pandemic. There was a 36 per cent boost to traffic for sites like this, and there was even a 35 per cent increase in conversion rates worldwide, meaning that more people were willing to commit to online purchases.

Report spokesperson Michael Green said that it was clear how consumer habits were being reconfigured in the wake of the coronavirus, with online shopping becoming far more popular and the power of social media sites meaning that brands and retailers are able to market their goods more effectively.