Having spent over a week with investigating the endless possibilities of “social commerce” (the intertwinement of E-commerce with Social media into an integrated unity) I must say that I have been pleasantly surprised. All three assigned articles: ‘Social commerce: Monetizing social media’ by dr. Paul Marsden and Syzygy group (2010), ‘Let’s Shop Online Together: An Empirical Investigation of Collaborative Online Shopping Support’ by Lei Zhu et al. (2010) and ‘The future of shopping’ by Darrel Rigby (2011) have contributed in an expansion of my knowledge (haha).
Not only do they raise awareness about the opportunities that lay in front of us, they inform and educate. The first two articles I believe offer very valid points. The second one offers irrefutable empirical evidence about the benefits of shopping collaboratively online. The SPSS analysis is solid and straight forward. With the first article at some point we reach the subheading of the six distinct dimensions for social commerce which seem detrimental to the success of your social commerce activities:
- ‘Social Shopping’
- ‘Ratings & Reviews’
- ‘Recommendations & Referrals’
- ‘Forums & Communities’
- ‘Social media optimisation’
- ‘Social Ads and Apps’
While publishing the author was kind enough to write down the most important companies that either stand out in this field of expertise, or the ones which we as consumers, entrepreneurs and alike could contact for own reasons. Incase we for example, would like to build on our social commerce activities. This is of great use. Lets say, we want to increase your market coverage, reputation and ROI through higher traffic? Proceed to the ‘Ratings & Reviews’ section. Here the author tells you to which paid/unpaid review sites you can easily go to: “Sponsored reviews”, “PayPerPost”, “USocial” and “SubvertAndProfit”. This is really helpful when you are lacking the knowhow of where to start with your social commerce strategy. So make sure to check that article out!
For the third article of ‘Social Shopping’ I would like to offer a critique. Although I agree that the future of shopping will develop itself in a more and more Omni-channel retail environment I place some question marks behind the older age cohorts of the present. More specifically, people that are above the age of 65+. From a personal experience I see lots of elderly people that get more and more isolated by these technological advances. Don’t you think that this will only become worse as time progresses? Lets all try to imagine our grandma and grandpa on this one. In terms of clothing stores aimed at the older age groups I’m of the opinion that much of it should be kept the same, at least for now…
