Community-based features like online consumer reviews, discussion groups and wish-lists have been commonplace on e-commerce sites now for years. It’s easy to understand why. The internet is the easiest and quickest way to research products, and study after study shows that the opinions of one’s peers, whether it’s friends, family or like-minded consumers, have the greatest influence on someone’s purchase decision. Sites that have recognized and acted on this information have benefited the most through improved consumer engagement, brand affinity and sales.
BusinessWeek’s Spencer Ante recently wrote a story touching on this topic and how Amazon.com has succeeded in incorporating features that enable otherwise unrelated consumers to share opinions about the products it sells. But while peers are being effectively leveraged as online research aids, friends and family ironically remain a highly underutilized resource in the online purchase process.
What online retailers are still trying to figure out is how their brand can be a bigger part of the conversations that consumers are having with friends and family in much the same way Amazon.com has led the charge with peers.
Social shopping technology is the solution. With social shopping tools, consumers now have the choice of how to solicit feedback on purchases both big and small, and e-tailers can steer conversations that otherwise would have happened offline, through third party sites (Facebook, Twitter, etc.), or not at all, to them, with their brand as the backdrop. And the innovation that is social shopping could have implications for the tried-and-true staple of consumer reviews as well. Stay tuned.
Tags: amazon.com, e-commerce, real-time, s-commerce, social shopping