Social Window Shopping Use Case
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Background
A very common social activity is for friends to meet for a day of window shopping.
Friends walk from store to store, compare and contrast the merchandise, place items of interest on layaway, and ultimately make a purchasing decision based on the collective input from the group of friends.
The Internet has changed this dynamic by making it very easy for people to shop online. Sites like Amazon.com offer User Ratings and Reviews features that enable any member to post their thoughts on a particular item. They also provide Wishlist features that enable people to set aside items that they are considering for purchase.
While these features provide a great source of information and utility to the online shopper, they are still missing the crux of what makes window shopping so powerful; namely the input and social camaraderie of friends.
Who Do People Trust?
How important is the input and social camaraderie of friends? Looking at the chart below from Forrester, you will see that people most value and trust the opinions of friends and acquaintances that have used the products or services that they are considering.
With the advent of the Social Web, we are at a point where e-commerce websites are better able to model social behaviors such as window shopping as part of an online shopping experience.
Sneaks4Geeks: Social Window Shopping Example
Let's look at an example where you are shopping for running shoes on a popular e-commerce site called Sneaks4Geeks.com. You have been researching all of the latest running shoes by reading all of the reviews and ratings and have narrowed your search down to your top three choices. You would now like to reach out to your network of friends to get their input.
While you already have some friends on the Sneaks4Geeks website, you also want to get the opinions of your running friends on Facebook and the Nike+ community.
Sneaks4Geeks enables this experience via its Social Window Shopping application which enables people to interact with and get shopping advice from their friends on a range of social sites. Since the Window Shopping application developers had the mentality of "write once, social everywhere" when they created the application, they chose Ringside Networks to help them achieve this goal.
On the Sneaks4Geeks website, you simply add your top three running shoe choices into the Window Shopping application and use the application to reach out to your running friends on Sneaks4Geeks, Facebook, and Nike+. Your friends are prompted with the note: "Help me choose! I'm considering the following running shoes for the Broad Street Run in May. What's your favorite?".
Since the Window Shopping application is also integrated with Facebook and Nike+, your friends on these sites can respond to your request by using the Window Shopping application directly on their site. They place their votes for one of the running shoes and provide an insightful comment back.
After you receive the votes from your friends and read their comments, you are able to make a purchase based on your virtual window shopping experience. The Window Shopping application automatically thanks your friends and lets them know which shoe you chose. This shopping experience reminds some of your friends that their running shoes are getting worn out, so Sneaks4Geeks is able to generate more sales based off of this virtual word of mouth.
Conclusion
A critical success factor for any Social Web initiative is to find the area of passion that fuels social engagement. In the case of online shopping, providing a way to model window shopping behaviors online provides the ability to tap into an area of passion inherent in many shoppers.
Ringside Networks is focused on providing solutions to Social Web scenarios like the one described in this paper, and we have designed the Ringside Social Application Server to:
- Connect your website members to the Social Web
- Connect members to friends on your website, Facebook, or any OpenSocial site
- Connect social applications to your website, Facebook, or any OpenSocial site
- Connect your social applications to your content, data, and systems
References
- This paper based on blog entitled "Social Window Shopping"
http://connollyshaun.blogspot.com/2008/06/social-window-shopping.html - Forrester Figure 7-1 obtained from "Data Chart of the Week: Who Do People Trust?"
http://blogs.forrester.com/charleneli/2008/04/data-chart-of-1.html - Social Web Example: The Nike+ Community
http://connollyshaun.blogspot.com/2008/06/social-web-example-nike-plus-community.html - Wikipedia definition of "Social Web"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_web
Additional References
- Ringside Networks Social Business website links to a wide range of articles covering the business aspects of the Social Web
http://www.ringsidenetworks.com/socialbusiness/ - Ringside Networks team blogs cover industry, technical, and product related topics
http://www.ringsidenetworks.com/community/blogs/ - Why Build Social Applications into a Website?
http://bobbickel.blogspot.com/2008/02/why-build-social-applications-into-web.html
- Why Develop a Facebook Application?
http://bobbickel.blogspot.com/2008/04/why-develop-facebook-application.html
- Social Media: Rent or Own?
http://jasonkinner.wordpress.com/2008/03/01/social-media-rent-or-own/
- Search Advertising vs. Social Applications
http://bobbickel.blogspot.com/2008/03/search-advertising-vs-social.html