ecommerce, seo and social shopping

Sean Percy · 07-04-2009 02:06 PM

Hi

I am fascinated with emerging ecommerce trends - social shopping in particular. I have to be honest I don't quite get it although I can see it's time may be just areound the corner.

Do any ecommerce site owners or seo's actually use social shopping sites as ways of driving relevant traffic and sales??

Below is a snippet from a little article I wrote a few months back which might be of interest to people who haven't really thought about social shopping.

Some statistics and predictions from rantorave
According to a global Nielsen survey of 26,486 Internet users in 47 markets, consumer recommendations are the most credible form of advertising among 78% of the study’s respondents. (Nielsen, “Word-of-Mouth the Most Powerful Selling Tool”).
83% of shoppers said online product evaluations and reviews influenced their purchasing decisions. (Opinion Research Corporation, an infoGROUP company, July 2008).
76% of US retailers said user-generated content would have a greater impact on their marketing goals in the near future. (SLI Systems/Zoomerang, November 2008).
56% of UK website owners say that user-generated content lifts conversion levels; 77% say it increases traffic; and 42% say it increases the average spend on site.(eConsultancy survey of 360 website owners across all sectors, November 2008).
By 2020, 84% of marketers agree that building customer trust will become marketing’s primary objective, and 82% agree that collaboration with customers will prevail over marketing. (1to1 Media survey April, 2008).

Top 10 Social shopping sites:

Kaboodle – a great site, arguably market leader geared towards female consumers. Now owned by Hearst Digital Media.
ThisNext - another strong site with an emphasis on female consumers, this site feels like a great window shopping experience with expert Maverns on tap
Tribesmart – this site is making use of twitter and facebook connect. There are some great tools such as the personal list builder and community messaging features based on the ‘Tribes’ idea. Like Veedow, Wists and Crowdstorm it could appeal to both sexes and this is potentially where the gap in the market is as Kaboodle, OSOYOU and ThisNext seem to have marked out a claim on the younger female market.
Veedow -a slightly confusing site, a neat idea, still yet to realize it’s full potential in my view
Stylehive - feeling less like a pure play social shopping site these days, it has a strong emphasis on wannabe celebrity fashion/lifestyle writers who you follow – it is not as vibrant as twitter although you can see where they are going with it
Jungle Raft - a new entrant, included as it is a new concept with a clear proposition in terms of pulling the best deals from Amazon
Stylefeeder - offers to help users discover products based on their unique tastes. The looks a little off the pace and has some annoying and tacky pop up ads. All a bit old skool.
Crowdstorm – the site is a Digg type site for products, it is based on buzz and an expert opinion network– although it does seem to have gone quiet in the last 12 months
Shopstyle - feels like an ecommerce site with price discounts on display. Lacks obvious reviews or community features although the stylebooks feature is really nice enabling people to put looks together and share these – the ‘sale alert’ feature could be useful though and the site has hooked up with Elle magazine in the past.
Wists - a trending site about what is new and what people plan on buying