As customer-reviews specialist Yelp proved yesterday in its first quarterly earnings report, all big acquisitions in our lives will start with asking the crowd first what they think or know of a particular merchant or product. Here in lies the promise –  and challenge – for a social commerce sector that’s expected to top $30 billion in the next few years.

Drilling a bit deeper into the social customer equation is UK-based Gloople, a B2B social commerce specialist. It published this latest infographic entitled “The Future of the Social Customer,”  looking at the social customer, pulling together a series of data points and research that trace the path from browsing on, say, Facebook or Twitter to pulling out the credit card.

 

Editor’s Note: Join us on June 12 at Social Media Influence 2012 for an in-depth discussion into the future of social commerce. We’ll be joined by an impressive lineup of speakers who have made a highly successful transition to social retail.