Graham Charlton of E-consultancy asked a group of e-commerce professionals what were there predictions of big trends in 2015 and one of the trends mentioned was ‘Social Shopping’.
As an avid internet shopper, this really interested me! Social Shopping is the idea that one can be looking on their favourite social media site (e.g. Facebook or Tumblr) see something they like and buy it directly from the site at the click of a button. I have my worries about this trend, will we be exploited by multinational corporations paying millions of dollars to place advertisements on every page, tempting you to buy products when all you want to do is scroll through Twitter and see the latest celebrity scandal? The answer is more than likely yes and it is a very smart move by these companies to do so.
Another side of “Social Shopping” is Depop, an App that was set up by Italian entrepreneur Simon Beckerman. His goal was to set up a mobile marketplace to connect with friends. Depop definitely has the power to become an e-commerce success story. The idea is that users scroll down through a feed showing friends items that they are selling, and ultimately end up buying something. It has a large following of bloggers and YouTube “superstars” setting up their accounts encouraging fans to do the same, thus building a good user-base. The company has proved very successful in the EU and USA, having set up new teams and offices across both areas.
In my opinion, Social Shopping will only continue to grow and business need to jump at this opportunity while it still has the ability to give the company competitive advantage!
sarahwalshebussiness 