Using Social Commerce as a Viral Marketing Tool
DecisionStep customer Charlotte Russe was an early adopter of ShopTogether, aiming to make the experience on their site as fun as possible while bringing in influencers. One way Charlotte Russe and other customers let shoppers know about the ability to connect is by marketing ShopTogether through email, Twitter and Facebook like the example below.
Promotions that offer discounts to users who shop together encourages influencers and site fans to tell their friends about the brand and then brings them on to the site, where they can browse together, share ideas and have fun, all which help lead to purchase decisions.
ShopTogether can provide promo codes for customers to use at check-out; retailers can ask customers to invite one, two or 10 friends to shop together on the site at a time to receive discounts.
According to Charlotte Russe, with ShopTogether “Customers are shopping not only with their friends, but also with siblings, parents and other relatives…There is a branding aspect to this as well as a return-on-investment perspective.”
With the growth of social shopping, 2010 is sure to see even more examples of retailers engaging consumers and building brand.
