Monsoon has reported that trials of shoppable posts on its social media channels have driven a 29 per cent increase in the amount of time people spend on its website.

The High Street women’s fashion retailer is trialling technology from social e-commerce firm Curalate which aims to turn images and videos in posts across Facebook, Instagram and Twitter into a virtual pop-up shop.

A progress report showed that the average dwell time - the time customers spend browsing the site for clothing and accessories - is up 29 per cent among customers who arrive through Curalate’s ‘Showroom’ function rather than direct hits on the company’s website.

Robyn Molyneux, senior content and social media manager at Monsoon, said the retailer has also seen an 18 per cent fall in bounce rates - people leaving the site - after customers arrive via Showroom posts, as shoppers explore products beyond the landing page.

Monsoon is also using the technology to generate a ‘fan reel’ of customer images which are then curated in the #MyMonsoon gallery on the retailer’s home page.

“Shoppers post strong imagery, and we get a lot featuring childrenswear, which is great as this is a big area of our business. Customers seeing others wearing their purchases is having a positive effect on our conversion rate and order value,” Molyneux said.

Apu Gupta, chief executive of Curalate, said: “Images posted to social media are becoming the modern day storefront, introducing consumers to products they never knew existed and bringing them inside.

“With hundreds of thousands of social media followers regularly scrolling past Monsoon’s ‘social storefronts’, the retailer is making it easier for consumers to purchase the products they discover.”

Last week Pinterest announced it was enabling hundreds of millions of ‘shoppable’ pins across its image-based social media platform.

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