Social media and online retailers go hand in hand these days, retailers are wisening up to the fact that social media plays a powerful role in the marketing mix and provides an influential platform for promotion that nothing offline could compete with. However, where the high street will always come up trumps is the sociability factor, yes we can Tweet about an item we want to buy but online shopping still lacks the personal and social interaction many people experience when they are shopping on the high street. Being a keen shopper, both online and on the high street, I always wonder how far online retailers can push the boundaries in terms of creating a user experience that has the best of both worlds. Many are almost there but shopping online still hasn’t turned into the social experience shopping on the high street is, whether that is possible I don’t know but I feel online retailers could be taking greater risks in an attempt to try.
Facebook have a wealth of ecommerce applications letting you recommend products to friends, try clothes on a virtual you and view upcoming collections similarly there are a host of ecommerce social websites where members can chat and browse products amongst other things. However, there seems to be a distinct lack of retailers bringing social media to their ecommerce website, yes they may have a link to their Twitter and Facebook page but there isn’t anyone really introducing social media into the mix.
It all makes sense in my mind, on the high street it is ritual for girls to go shopping together picking outfits together and assuring each other that ‘no your bum doesn’t look big in it’- I dare say males are in on it as well shopping with friends or at the very least shopping with a girlfriend. This is because shopping is a social activity and shopping online should be no different. Whether you are shopping for an all in sound system or an outfit for a Saturday night it is fair to say that we value the opinion and view of our friends.
With this in mind it got me thinking of the possibilities of online social shopping…
With a large retailer such as Amazon social shopping is definitely a possibility. Imagine if in the not so distant future you were able to go to the Amazon website, log into your Facebook account, and ask your friends what their opinion is of a specific product or alternatively make product suggestions- a functionality that, as you could imagine, would work a treat at Christmas!
One retailer already venturing into such social territories is Asos who this year introduced Asos Community. An online social community for existing Asos customers to chat, keep up to date with the Asos news, post photos and discuss fashion. A brilliant idea and excellent use of social media and with over 60,000 members it is obviously popular but I have to wonder how many of these people actively use the Asos Community as I notice that all existing customers are automatically made community member.
Everyday millions of people log into Facebook (or Twitter, LinkedIn, Bebo or MySpace) and the average number of friends a user has is 130- all it takes is for one friend to recommend a product to his entire friend list for that retailer to gain a couple more customers- some of which may have never even been on the website before!
It really is a simple process, logging into a social media profile is daily ritual for many people and once logged in we often stay logged in for the entire day popping back on every so often to see what the chat is. Is it possible for users to be logged into Facebook, go shopping and on participating website be given updates for that specific website- what your friends have been looking at, what they are recommending to other, what they are reviewing and even what they need your advice about. So far it seems the biggest leap retailers have made is to provide a link where you can Tweet about an item or post it on Facebook through their branded application, which is a bit long and tedious. Social shopping should be easier than that and offer greater interactivity amongst users.
I imagine that we will soon start seeing greater fusion between social media and ecommerce, so far the majority of retailers have taken tentative steps towards introducing social into their ecommerce shopping carts, however, I predict that it will soon become an essential way of enhancing user experience with retailers pushing social shopping to the max.
Tags: ecommerce, social media
