‘You’re wearing my trainers’ and other social commerce dilemmas
Social commerce is the next big thing. From customer reviews to conversations within Twitter, it is now widely recognised that the human element increases sales. I guess we shouldn’t be that surprised as personal recommendation has always aided business, but now statistics prove that we are equally trustworthy when the recommendation is provided by a stranger.
Research has proven that a sales uplift of up to 14%* can be achieved on products with accompanying customer reviews against the same product when the reviews are removed.
However in the current ecommerce landscape, the emphasis is still on inviting comment and feedback onto the retailer’s website. The concept of the centralised “online store” still holds strong. But is this about to change?
Redweb is looking beyond this scenario and, whilst still working with mainstream platforms such as MS Commerce Server, is beginning to develop and explore the options of breaking traditional stores into component and easily transportable pieces. This provides the opportunity for products to be mix and matched, repurposed, integrated and sold within social media platforms, blogs and even image tags.
The option for a “brand loyal” customer to promote their favourite goods across their own domain holds huge potential. It will allow retailers’ content/products to be aggregated into new areas of the web and in a quantity not seen today. By adding quick payment methods and easy integration hooks into the host sites (such as Facebook) for address/delivery details, the one-click buy from anywhere becomes much more achievable.
So in the future I will be following my favourite celebrity and while reading about their hectic social life, I will also be buying their clothes and accessories directly from that article with ease.
In addition, I can shout about my great new hi-fi or trainers to my friends. It is I guess online mimicking true life again, with the added danger of all my friends turning up wearing the same thing! Or is there an app for that?
*source: Econsultancy
