Mora Discover / Topic

Social Commerce

Social commerce had a noisy 2024. TikTok Shop rolled out aggressively in the US, Instagram retreated from the standalone Shop tab, YouTube Shopping quietly built out, and live shopping had its third 'this is the year' moment without quite delivering. In 2026 the real picture is sharper. TikTok Shop is producing real GMV for some categories (beauty, supplements, low-AOV lifestyle) and almost zero for others. Instagram is back to being a discovery and DM-conversion channel. YouTube is growing for considered purchases. We track the platform updates, the merchant-side reports, the analyst takes (Morgan Stanley retail, eMarketer, Insider Intelligence), and the practitioner threads. Then we synthesize each cluster into a working read on whether your category should be testing the channel this quarter. No hype, no platform marketing, just the operator-level signal.