Are creators the new high street? How social commerce impacts UK marketing
- Chris Godfrey
- May 12
- 5 min read
Creators are reshaping UK retail. Social commerce, where shoppers discover, evaluate, and buy entirely within TikTok, Instagram, or YouTube, is projected to hit US$49.21 billion in the UK in 2025. Creators are driving this by offering something ads can't buy: Trust. 78% of UK consumers trust influencer recommendations more than traditional advertising.
Let's be honest, the British high street has had it rough the past few years. But, while physical retail struggles, something genuinely interesting is happening in the feed.
For a growing chunk of UK shoppers, the entire journey from "ooh, what's that?" to "order confirmed" now happens inside TikTok, Instagram or YouTube. No Google search. No brand website. Just a creator they trust, a tagged product, and a thumb that moves at lightning speed.
This isn't a trend anymore. It's infrastructure.
The UK social commerce market is expected to grow by 22.7% year-on-year to reach US$49.21 billion in 2025. By 2030, that figure is projected to hit around US$104 billion. And what’s driving a huge chunk of that growth? Creators. They’re the messy force behind a consumer revolution that will see 21.5 million social buyers in the UK by 2028 - up by 82.2% from 2021.
So what does social commerce actually mean in practice?
It's more than running ads on social. It's when discovery, evaluation, and payment all happen in the same session, on the same platform. Watch a creator's video, tap the tagged product, check delivery info, buy. Done. No redirect to a brand website, no abandoned cart email to follow up. TikTok Shop, Instagram Shops, YouTube Shopping integrations - they all have the same goal: Keep shoppers in the feed and make buying feel as easy as liking a post.
Why creators sit at the centre of all of this
Short-form video, stories, lives - these formats reward content that feels personal and a little rough around the edges. That's a creator's home turf, not a brand studio's. A single person with a phone can film a product demo, respond to comments, and post three versions of an idea in the time it takes most brand teams to brief one asset.
But the real secret weapon is trust.
One in four UK adults say influencer recommendations impact their purchasing decisions and that number exceeds 50% among Gen Z consumers. In fact, 78% of consumers in the UK trust recommendations from influencers more than traditional advertisements. That's not a small thing. Only 1 in 10 Brits trust social media advertising, compared to 50% of Gen Z and millennials who say they trust influencers to give good advice about the products they promote. Creators have built something brands spend years and millions trying to manufacture; genuine credibility.
Think about it this way: A creator is essentially a shop assistant embedded in the feed. They show how something fits on a real body, talk through the pros and cons, answer questions live in the comments.
As an example, consider an activewear brand. A handful of fitness creators posting ‘train with me’ content with shoppable links could drive a large slice of total sales without a single customer ever visiting a product page.
The strategic upside for UK marketers
What benefits does this change bring to businesses?
Reach is the obvious one. But the more interesting value is relevance. Creators give brands access to tightly defined UK communities, such as new parents in specific cities, weekend hikers, student gamers in Glasgow, over-50s getting into strength training. These are self-selecting groups where engagement rates frequently outstrip brand-owned channels,
There's also the creative output angle. One campaign can generate dozens of different hooks because each creator speaks their audience's language. One may lean into humour, another into detailed reviews, another into punchy before-and-after content. For teams under pressure to feed hungry content calendars, that decentralised creative engine is genuinely useful.
And then there's the data. When products are shoppable inside content, you get real-time insight into what messages drive sales, which bundles move units, and where price points cause drop-off. That's free market research that can inform TV scripts, paid search copy, and even product development.
The messy reality: Risks and rules
Of course, none of this is frictionless. Handing chunks of your customer journey to independent creators raises legitimate questions about brand control. Without clear guardrails, messaging can drift, and your legal team won't thank you for it.
There's also operational load: Outreach, contracting, briefing, asset review, relationship management. It all adds up. And if a creator you work with faces a backlash for something entirely unrelated to your brand, you're getting pulled into that conversation whether you like it or not.
Regulation is also non-negotiable. The ASA expects paid or incentivised content to be clearly labelled as an "Ad" on the platform's paid partnership tag, not buried in a caption. Brands share responsibility with creators to get this right. On the consumer protection side, pricing must be transparent, delivery and returns information cannot be hidden, and dodgy urgency tactics will land both creator and brand in deep trouble.
Measurement is a further tricky obstacle. Sales may be split across native checkouts, affiliate links, and marketplace traffic. Stitching that into a single view that finance teams actually believe is not a trivial thing.
How to get started without losing your head
Treat creator marketing as a structured test, not a leap of faith. This means:
Start with a 6–8 weeks pilot on a single platform, with one or two proven products, compared against existing paid social benchmarks is a sensible starting point.
Define what you're actually chasing - incremental sales, new audience insight, or price point testing - before briefing a single creator.
When it comes to selecting creators, follower counts matter less than you think. Prioritise UK audience concentration, steady average views, strong comment quality, and evidence of previous action-driving campaigns. A mix of smaller, highly engaged creators and a couple of mid-tiers will often outperform one big name. Keep in mind that micro-influencers have an average engagement rate of 7.2%, compared to just 2.4% for macros.
Provide guardrails, not scripts. Set mandatory claims, disclosure requirements, brand safety lines, and then let creators do their thing.
Make sure your technical setup (product feeds, tracking links, discount codes) is actually ready before you launch, so the pilot generates real learning.
At the end of it, compare cost per acquisition against other channels, but also read the comments. The language customers use, the objections they raise, the questions they keep asking. That qualitative intelligence is often as valuable as the revenue itself.
What good looks like right now
For the most switched-on UK marketers, creator-led social commerce is woven into always-on activity; regular live shopping events around launches and seasonal peaks, retargeting built from viewers and engagers, and a small roster of long-term creator partners treated almost like franchisees.
Winning content doesn't stay trapped on one platform either. Creators' videos get repurposed for paid campaigns, email, landing pages, even in-store screens. Or to put it another way: One piece of content, multiple uses, maximum value.
Final word:
As more of the British buying journey shifts into the feed, the brands that win will be the ones treating creators as strategic commercial partners, not disposable media placements. For them, social commerce won't be a test. It'll be a revenue engine sitting alongside search, marketplaces, and yes, the high street itself.
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