Make It With Michael

By Kaylynn Chong More than 84 percent of smartphone users in the U.S. go online to look up products before purchasing . E-commerce is slowly taking over the consumer world with sales reaching $394.9 billion in 2016 , up nearly 16 percent from the previous year. To stay on top, it makes sense that go where their audience is—meshing the worlds of retail and social media. Here are five e-commerce tools that are changing the retail industry. Bonus: Download a free guide that teaches you how to turn Facebook traffic into sales in four simple steps using Hootsuite. 1. Pinterest Lens Pinterest Lens is to consumer items as Shazam is to music. The discovery tool shows you related goods based on whatever your camera points at—food, clothing, furniture, recipes, and more. For example, if you took a picture of an avocado, the app might give you a guacamole recipe. You can even snap a picture of a shoe and Pinterest Lens will show you similar styles or different outfits to pair them wit...