Social commerce start ups have been attracting talent and financing, especially the latter since the start of the year. However, the arbiter of retail trend success—the holiday shopping season—suggests that social commerce has not yet delivered on its promise.

Zmags, Moontoast

Zmags, a mobile and social commerce company, has raised $7 million from Square 1 Bank and existing investors OpenView Venture Partners and Northcap Partners.

Moontoast, creator of social commerce software, recently secured $6,000,000 in a round led by Nashville, TN-based venture capital firm, The Martin Companies.

MySpace co-founder Josh Berman has been focusing resources on his latest venture, BeachMint. "Ecommerce and social commerce is in the first inning, there are many more innings to go," he told the Financial Post. "We're extremely bullish on the future of what we’re up to."

Social Commerce Holiday Fail

According to Baynote’s 2nd annual holiday online shopping experience survey, nearly 80% of respondents said social networks had no influence on their holiday shopping decisions yet 55% said getting advice on products from friends was important, indicating retailers are missing an opportunity to exploit the social graph.

Less than nine percent of consumers purchased something from a retailer's Facebook fan page yet 20% made a purchase on an e-commerce website based on a promotion seen on Facebook.

Consumers gave the overall shopping experience on Facebook a C+ grade.