Social shopping is the latest social networking activity. Some of you might be wondering what exactly social shopping is! It is different to plain old online shopping because it doesn’t involve a solitary browse through a clothing website or placing the same old weekly online food order at the supermarket.
Social shopping is another form of social networking. It involves shopping online with a group of like minded friends. This means you never have to be left to choose that party dress or holiday on your own again, you can get your friends involved!
Online friends can comment, share and recommend purchases. One of the easiest ways to do this is through Facebook Likes. There is a function in Facebook where you can add a like button to specific items for sale on a website.
This is a great idea for a fashion website for instance. On each page with an individual item of clothing on it, there can be a Like button so that the shopper can share their favourite items with friends.
The persons Likes will then show up on their Facebook Wall and hence advertise their prospective purchases to friends, who can then comment or like the item too. This works well on fashion websites like Asos and Topshop.
If you own an online shop you too can add these Like buttons via Facebook. If you do not have a Facebook presence for your e-commerce site you can get an internet marketing manager to set this up for you, creating a Facebook Page and allowing you to publicize your products via Facebook.
If you are a consumer, there are other online stores that also offer other clever features to enhance your online shopping and make it more social. There are several websites now that let you browse items in categories and share your experience through Facebook and Twitter.
Shopsquad offers recommendations based upon your actions on the site. You can tick off items you already own and items you’d like, this stimulates recommendations and discounts from the site. You can also share your activity with friends on Facebook.
Svply is another website that works in a similar way. At Wanelo you can follow stores you like, plus post and organise your wanted products. Both of these have an option to connect with Facebook friends.
Daily Grommet has a very different USP, it lets you shop whilst supporting the causes that matter to you – for instance eco innovation. You can share and discuss your chosen item with friends on Facebook or Twitter.
Finally, Store Envy provides a marketplace for independent sellers to set up a store. You can browse this by category or market (topic). There is an option to log in through Facebook to connect with your friends.
So whether you want to visit your favourite online shop to browse and share items with friends, use one of these new type of social shopping websites, or perhaps set up social networking capabilities on your own online store – shopping online no longer means shopping alone!