Simply put, social media + online shopping = social shopping
My question now is: To what extend do blogshops embrace the social shopping concept? How big is social shopping for blogshops?
Here is an article that describes social shopping:
From Fresh Networks website.
Social media + online shopping = social shopping
Ever since sites like Kaboodle and Zebo spearheaded “social shopping” (a mix of e-commerce and traditional shopping where consumers shop in a social networking environment) consumers now have the ability to swap ideas, share product reviews and discuss latest fashion trends with like-minded people before, during and after their decision making and purchasing journey.
Social shopping has certainly helped to personalise the sometimes faceless online shopping experience. And with 67% of shoppers spending more money online after recommendations from an online community of friends or like-minded people (according to Internet Retailer) a key element of social shopping seems to be the ability to recommend and share additional items that shoppers are likely to want to purchase.
A recent social shopping survey by e- tailer PowerReviews has also shown that a retailer’s own e-commerce sites play an important role in the purchasing process. Survey respondents rated customer reviews as being the most persuasive factor in making a purchase and nearly half of all respondents said they would leave a retailer’s site if user-generated reviews were lacking.
Online shoe and clothing shop Zappos has certainly taken this knowledge to heart. Largely known for their successful use of Twitter, thanks to the CEO lending his personality to the company brand, Zappos was also one of the early adopters of social shopping. Their site has a comprehensive ratings and reviews section to advise people on what products they might like based on their purchase selection, aiding the shopping process and helping with the conversion rate. They also have a “notify me of new styles” button, as well as plenty of “favourite” ratings options so that customers can formulate a shopping list based on selections made by customers who have viewed the same or similar products.
More recently, apparel company Levi Strauss and Co has turned their hand to social shopping . Their new Levi’s friends store uses the recently-launched Facebook “like” plugin to allow shoppers to see the number of Facebookers who ‘like’ an item. It also allows the shopper to cast a vote about a product, encouraging joint participation in what was previously an individual shopping experience.
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This article here provides some background on social shopping. It tracks the beginnings to group purchases, or aggregated buying practices. What is interesting here is that the Tuangou and Groupon models sounds a lot like what the blogshops are doing in terms of sourcing their suppliers and getting cheap deals from China.
Are blogshops a local manifestation of the wider Tuangou or social shopping concept?
From Social Media Today:
A Quick Social Shopping Overview
Social shopping is getting a lot of media attention these days. For those not familiar with the term, social shopping is a form of social media and networking where consumers and/or retailers aggregate and share information about products, prices and deals. In most cases, buyers get discounts by buying in collective bulk.
Obviously, this isn't a new concept. The U.S. Grange movement in the 19th century used social shopping to provide small farmers stronger negotiating power with railroads and farm equipment manufacturers.
Fast forwarding to the late 1990's, multiple online social shopping companies formed - and failed — during the Dot Com era. The 90's social shopping poster child, Mercata, raised roughly $90 million prior to going bust.
Social shopping next showed up on the radar in China. Starting around 2004 dozens of team buying sites popped up on the Internet in China. "Tuangou" - Chinese for "group buying" - quickly became popular.
Groupon, an online collective buying service, is the current leader of the new social shopping wave. Groupon subscribers (consumers) get daily deal emails. Offers come from local businesses and generally are heavily discounted. A recent San Francisco offer was $50 for a child photography session which normally retails for $295.
The offer doesn't become good until a targeted number of people elect to buy it. Often subscribers will encourage their friends to also buy to make sure the deal happens.
For the business making the offer, Groupon is a pay-for-performance advertising and sales engine. The business pays a fee to Groupon for each sale. Groupon business users say it's a great way to drive business and find new customers.
Groupon is currently available in 30 cities, experiencing dramatic growth, and plans to be in over 80 cities by the end of the year. It recently raised $125 million to fund its expansion and a major competitor, LivingSocial, recently raised $14 million.
So why is social shopping looking to be so successful? We think there are three reasons:
We're in the early day of social shopping, but it already has a strong following. And while today's focus is on consumer social shopping, we expect B2B social shopping to quickly emerge.
It is a trend all small businesses should be aware of.
Obviously, this isn't a new concept. The U.S. Grange movement in the 19th century used social shopping to provide small farmers stronger negotiating power with railroads and farm equipment manufacturers.
Fast forwarding to the late 1990's, multiple online social shopping companies formed - and failed — during the Dot Com era. The 90's social shopping poster child, Mercata, raised roughly $90 million prior to going bust.
Social shopping next showed up on the radar in China. Starting around 2004 dozens of team buying sites popped up on the Internet in China. "Tuangou" - Chinese for "group buying" - quickly became popular.
Groupon, an online collective buying service, is the current leader of the new social shopping wave. Groupon subscribers (consumers) get daily deal emails. Offers come from local businesses and generally are heavily discounted. A recent San Francisco offer was $50 for a child photography session which normally retails for $295.
The offer doesn't become good until a targeted number of people elect to buy it. Often subscribers will encourage their friends to also buy to make sure the deal happens.
For the business making the offer, Groupon is a pay-for-performance advertising and sales engine. The business pays a fee to Groupon for each sale. Groupon business users say it's a great way to drive business and find new customers.
Groupon is currently available in 30 cities, experiencing dramatic growth, and plans to be in over 80 cities by the end of the year. It recently raised $125 million to fund its expansion and a major competitor, LivingSocial, recently raised $14 million.
So why is social shopping looking to be so successful? We think there are three reasons:
1. It is simple: Social shopping is very easy and has clear benefits for both buyer and seller.
2. It is social: Social networking has matured and entered the mainstream. Social shopping leverages consumer comfort with online social activities and extends it to shopping.
3. It is local: The deals are coming from local businesses and plays into the broader “Buy Local” movement.
It is a trend all small businesses should be aware of.
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There are a few ways leverage social shopping.
1. Set up a store front on a social network. The idea is to access the social network site's population. Think 500 million people on Facebook as your potential market. Many blogshops have such outlets on Facebook, (in addition to their blogshop sites, Twitter accounts and C2C marketplaces). There are already 3rd party applications that provide such e-commerce platforms for businesses to build storefronts on Facebook. Here is an example of an application called ShopFans.
From Techcrunch
Adgregate Markets’ ShopFans Brings Social Retail Storefronts To Facebook
Transactional advertising network provider Adgregate Markets
, a finalist at the 2008 TechCrunch50 conference, is extending its e-commerce technology to Facebook today, with the launch of ShopFans, a social shopping applications. ShopFans is an e-commerce application on Facebook that allows retailers to set up a storefront on the social network. Similar to Payvment, the app allows consumers to purchase goods and make secure purchase transactions directly in Facebook.
ShopFans also allows brands to to leverage Facebook’s social streams , including the ability for consumers to post News Feed stories promoting “Wish lists”, “I want this!”, “Likes”, “Shout outs”, gift registries, private and exclusive sales, and more. The idea is that the application is not only able to sell goods on Facebook but is also able to add a social element to shopping. And users can promote and share the brand’s message and products on Facebook, creating a viral advertising channel.
Shoppers can share product ‘Likes’, share recent purchases with friends, rate and review products, register ‘wish lists’ and ‘gift registries,’ and receive “fan-only” special promotional deals from ShopFans’ storefront’s sales.
Adgregate’s mobile commerce and advertising offerings have gained considerable traction since it’s launch a few years ago. Adgregate just launched ShopAds,
which enables customers to shop and complete secure transactions within Flash-based ad banners. the startup struck a deal with NBC Universal, recently acquiringdistribution deal with Google’s DoubleClick, enabling advertisers on that platform to integrate ShopAds widgets with just a few mouse-clicks. The startup also recently launched its own shopping cart platform, ShopCloud. widget business Gydget and scoring a deal with distribution deal with Google’s DoubleClick, enabling advertisers on that platform to integrate ShopAds widgets with just a few mouse-clicks. The startup also recently launched its own shopping cart platform, ShopCloud.Here is the Payvment E-commerce Storefront that Facebook provides for users to build storefronts fro FREE on its site (click to enlarge the picture).
2. Build social shopping applications into your existing website. A good example is the ubiquitous 'Like' or the 'Invite your friends from Facebook' button embedded on many e-commerce websites.
This short video shows how Levis is using this method of social shopping:
The Levis' Friends Store uses this social shopping approach. You can see it here in this website
What this means is that the social media/Web 2.0 revolution is now changing how e-commerce sites look and how they operate. It will be matter of time before these social applications will become the norm.
3. There are social networks that are designed for e-commerce specifically. Just as Linked-In is to network working professionals, and MySpace is a social network for music lovers, sites like Kaboodle are actually social networks but with e-commerce in mind. So in a sense they are like a Web 2.0/social media version of an e-commerce portal.
Here are some examples of such social shopping sites.
From Social Times website:
Top Five Social Shopping Sites Worth Your Time
Posted by Arnold Zafra on October 5th, 2008 11:21 PM
Among the most covered social networking niche are social shopping sites. These social networks promise to give you sound shopping tips and advices as well as great bargain hunts. In addition, they help in boosting online commerce as well. Here are five social shopping sites which we think are probably worth your time, especially now that the Holiday shopping rush is about to usher in.
Kaboodle – a social shopping site where you can discover, recommend and share consumer products you stumbled upon on the web. It features powerful shopping tools and products that lets you organize your shopping lists, discover new things from people with similar tastes, get discounts on various products and ultimately of course, find the best prices. Kaboodle is a social networking site for people who loves to shop. As a member you can create and join groups, share shopping tips, feedback and product suggestions, personalize your profile using the site’s polls and widgets. Kaboodle boasts of 7 million unique monthly visitors to date.
ThisNext - describes itself as a shopcasting which is defined as a way to spread the word about things you love. It’s an amalgamation of the word shopping and broadcasting. But to put it in more simple terms, ThisNext is a social shopping site where you can explore, discover and rave about the hottest products online. It goes by the dictum – “buying better to live better”. As such it offers a platform where you can interact with community-validated taste makers and influencers in discovering recommended products. This next has evolved to become a virtual place where you can find and experience the best, most unique products on the web.
Zebo – is a social shopping community which taps on the power of your friends to help you get cool stuff online. You can create your Zebo personalized profile containing a list of what you own, want and love to shop for. Likewise, you can check on what other people have and want as well. In doing so, you can give them valuable tips and advices, talk online about your shopping needs, discuss products with your friends and ultimately of course – shop. The site also lets you create polls and find out other people’s opinions, create photo albums and share them with your friends.
Stylehive – is a social style club portal for people who live for fashion, design and shopping. It lets you meet your style muses and follow them as they discover and share their latest online product finds. Stylehive can best be described as a hybrid of social networking club and pop-culture lab. It features trendsetters creating, discovering and buying the hottest products online. As a member of the Stylehive you can build tagged collections to share, comment and speak with other hive members, build you own 24/7 shopping magazine, build and share your own shopping “wishlists” for the holidays, weddings and parties, promote yourselves and get noticed the world and join the fun by helping in building the hive with hot bookmars and recruiting people with style.
Wishpot - is a social shopping site that makes it easy to save and share interesting things you find in stores and online. Items in Wishpot are collected online or from stores and organized using an online shopping list. Your shopping list can be kept private or shared with your friends.It also lets you collect and discover products that you like, recommend your favorite stuff, share and explore gift suggestions or ask for opinions and advice. Wishpot works something like this. When you find something that you wish to buy online, you can saved the product information by clicking on a browser button. Wishpot will then save the product name, image, price and where to buy the product automatically. You can also add personal notes and tags to your saved product.
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The other thing to note about this is that social shopping draws teens.
Here is an article from eMarketer which reports the increasing participation of US teens in e-commerce via social shopping.
Kaboodle – a social shopping site where you can discover, recommend and share consumer products you stumbled upon on the web. It features powerful shopping tools and products that lets you organize your shopping lists, discover new things from people with similar tastes, get discounts on various products and ultimately of course, find the best prices. Kaboodle is a social networking site for people who loves to shop. As a member you can create and join groups, share shopping tips, feedback and product suggestions, personalize your profile using the site’s polls and widgets. Kaboodle boasts of 7 million unique monthly visitors to date.
ThisNext - describes itself as a shopcasting which is defined as a way to spread the word about things you love. It’s an amalgamation of the word shopping and broadcasting. But to put it in more simple terms, ThisNext is a social shopping site where you can explore, discover and rave about the hottest products online. It goes by the dictum – “buying better to live better”. As such it offers a platform where you can interact with community-validated taste makers and influencers in discovering recommended products. This next has evolved to become a virtual place where you can find and experience the best, most unique products on the web.
Zebo – is a social shopping community which taps on the power of your friends to help you get cool stuff online. You can create your Zebo personalized profile containing a list of what you own, want and love to shop for. Likewise, you can check on what other people have and want as well. In doing so, you can give them valuable tips and advices, talk online about your shopping needs, discuss products with your friends and ultimately of course – shop. The site also lets you create polls and find out other people’s opinions, create photo albums and share them with your friends.
Stylehive – is a social style club portal for people who live for fashion, design and shopping. It lets you meet your style muses and follow them as they discover and share their latest online product finds. Stylehive can best be described as a hybrid of social networking club and pop-culture lab. It features trendsetters creating, discovering and buying the hottest products online. As a member of the Stylehive you can build tagged collections to share, comment and speak with other hive members, build you own 24/7 shopping magazine, build and share your own shopping “wishlists” for the holidays, weddings and parties, promote yourselves and get noticed the world and join the fun by helping in building the hive with hot bookmars and recruiting people with style.
Wishpot - is a social shopping site that makes it easy to save and share interesting things you find in stores and online. Items in Wishpot are collected online or from stores and organized using an online shopping list. Your shopping list can be kept private or shared with your friends.It also lets you collect and discover products that you like, recommend your favorite stuff, share and explore gift suggestions or ask for opinions and advice. Wishpot works something like this. When you find something that you wish to buy online, you can saved the product information by clicking on a browser button. Wishpot will then save the product name, image, price and where to buy the product automatically. You can also add personal notes and tags to your saved product.
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The other thing to note about this is that social shopping draws teens.
Here is an article from eMarketer which reports the increasing participation of US teens in e-commerce via social shopping.
Social Shopping Draws Teens
AUGUST 5, 2010Teen girls seek peer feedback
In 2009, nearly half of all teen internet users bought goods such as apparel, books and music online, according to the Pew Internet & American Life Project.
This represents a 17-percentage-point increase in penetration over 2000. An even higher percentage would have made such purchases had they more spending money and access to a credit card.
“Several payment alternatives like debit cards and student accounts not only enable teens to buy on the web but also let parents set spending limits and monitor payment activity,” said Jeffrey Grau, eMarketer senior analyst and author of the new report “Marketing Online to Teens: Girls Shop with a Social Twist.” “Yet rather than offer these options, many retailers seem content to drive online teenagers to their physical stores.”
When it comes to what teens buy online and offline, the largest spending category by far is fashion—consisting of clothing (taking 22% of total teen spending), accessories (11%) and footwear (9%). Fashion represented 43% of North American respondents’ spending plans in spring 2010, Piper Jaffray reported in its 19th semiannual survey of teens.
Fashion translates into social shopping for many teens—especially girls—who frequently seek approval from close friends or siblings about considered purchases. Retailers that use innovative tools to bring that experience online will do best at attracting teen customers.
“New online tools are emerging that mimic the way teens like to shop in stores,” said Grau. “Some enable teens to shop online and instantly get feedback from peers about a considered purchase. Other help teens mix and match fashion outfits. Online retailers that are seriously interested in building their teen customer base should put these tools high on their list of web development priorities.”
The full report, “Marketing Online to Teens: Girls Shop with a Social Twist,” also answers these key questions:
- What percentage of teen internet users buy online, and what prevents more from doing so?
- How do teens use social media to get product tips and purchase advice?
- What do teens expect from the retailers they do business with?
- How do retailers market effectively to teens on social media?
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