Example: Barbara is looking to buy a new dress for herself to wear on her son’s birthday party. She logs on to Amazon and selects a dress of her choice. She also selects a pair of shoes, and jewelry to wear with the dress. Barbara, adds all the items to her wish list. She then logs in to looklet which say has tied up with Amazon.
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She logs in and tries to find look for her friends on Facebook who can give opinions on her wishlist. She finds her two good friends Maria and Sally online on Facebook. Barbara asks both of them for their honest opinion on what she is intending to purchase. Which both her friends like what Barbara is intending to purchase, Maria things the Jewelry is not going well with the dress Barbara has purchased. Both of them, help Barbara find the right Jewelry for the dress. Barbara now saves her choice and sends it to some fashion designer for her expert opinion. The fashion designer gives her ideas and helps her make a purchase.
While the above case may not be a reality as of now, it will surely be in a few months or say years to come. The term ‘Social Shopping’ is being used more and more. Bits and pieces of these examples are already put in place by online retailers. We’ll move towards social shopping slowly and steadily and it may not be wrong to say that most of the shopping decisions would be based on social recommendations and interactions in years to come.
I am already seeing a few blogs on list of social shopping websites. While the concept is clear, we are not yet there with the implementation. Kaboodle, Woot, Shopstyle, productwiki….The list goes on.
In my coming blogs, I will put up specific opportunities which retailers can grab to shape up their eCommerce websites for the social networking landscape.
