WELCOME to ecommerce 2.0 and new buzzwords like: "social commerce", "grapevine propoganda" and PIM (product information management" and more...by Joyce Schwarz, blogging at www.hollywood2020.blogs.com. New research by the AMA (American Marketing Assn.) shows a growing relationship between social networking and guess what? Yep, shopping!.....
HIGHLIGHTS FROM AMA RESEARCH STUDY:
Making a List and Checking It Twice: Social Networkers Seeking ...(official press release)
AMA's survey revealed about half of consumers who would visit social networking sites would go there to search for holiday gift ideas, find out about upcoming holiday sales, or download coupons, if given the option.
Nearly half (49 percent) of all respondents said they would participate
in one or more activities related to shopping and buying on those
sites, if those activities were available.
Nearly as many said they would visit a social networking site to search for gift ideas (47 percent); while one-third (29 percent) said they
would buy products on those sites, if such a service were available.
ACROSS THE POND:
LONDON www.hybris.com defines ecommerce 2.0 components :
The ideal E-Commerce 2.0 application brings buyers together, using integrated communities, reviews or “tell-a-friend” functions, and from the dealer’s point of view reinforces the ‘grapevine propaganda’ component of the purchase – keywords ‘social commerce’.
Hybris.com gives the following examples of ecommerce 2.0 sites:
Hybris.com says more than 1000 users are active in the online community for the scooter shop Scooter-Attack, in order to exchange information. For the Austrian snowboard shop Blue Tomato, visitors can publish their own experiences and comments, in which the products mentioned are linked directly with the shop. Both shops are based on the hybris E-Commerce solution, which was pronounced Best Retail Technology Solution 2006 at this year’s European Retail Solutions Awards.
MICROPURSUASION.com's Steve Rubel forecast the rise of social commerce and mentions it again in his Nov 19 post....Trend II: Social Commerce (Grade: A-)
Social commerce is basically utilizing the power of many to help us find and buy products and services. It involves the creation of new collaboration technologies that shrink the research and purchasing cycle.
Rubel points to :
Edgeio, . BloggerKit , Pepperjam Shopwiki, Google Base + Google Checkout, eBay's blogs and Yahoo Answers. He also mentions eBAY sellers who set up MySpace pages to promo their listings.
We've also been interested in adaptiveblue.com
-- seen here:
A French site called zlio.com allows rev-share also...
AFFILIATES KEY TO SUCCESS:
Hollywood 2020 belives that affiliates have to be the key to the social commerce community -- after all that's all that a social networking site is -- millions of potential affiliates.
CYBERMONDAY.com --
at Hollywood2020.blogs.com we're really impressed with the launch of the co-op marketing site called www.cybermonday.com ...not only did they get 400 merchants together...they set it up so that a percentage of sales ranging from 2-25 percent and maybe even more...go to a scholarship fund. Amazing marketing...and the scholarship fund adds a social aspect to it that is the kind of 'social' I like..social entrepreneurism -- not just socializing! More on that in a later post.
Last year's CyberMonday winners-- are on this chart:
