Page 224 - Introduction to Electronic Commerce and Social Commerce

208 7 Social Commerce: Foundations, Social Marketing, and Advertising

by employees during work hours. Companies also risk loss
of control over their brand images and reputations in social • A large number of people visiting social networks
media conversations and product review sites, which can attracts advertisers
affect product sales. The major barriers to adoption of Enter- • The increasing number of recommendations/sug-
prise 2.0 are resistance to change, difficulty in measuring gestions made by friends and the ease and speed of
ROI, and difficulties of integration with existing IT systems accessing them
and security. • The need to compete (e.g., by differentiation) and to
satisfy the social customer
• The emergence of social customers with knowledge
SECTION 7.3 REVIEW QUESTIONS and competence in using the Internet (e.g., in find-
ing reviews and comparing prices)
1. List the major benefits to customers. • The need to collaborate with business partners
2. List the major benefits to retailers. • The huge discounts provided by some of the new
3. List the major benefits to companies other than retailers. business models (e.g., flash sales)
4. Describe new or improved social commerce business • The socially oriented shopping models (e.g., group
models. buying)
5. Describe some concerns and limitations of social com- • The ease of shopping while you are inside some social
merce. networks (e.g., from Facebook’s “Buy” button)
• The ease of communicating with friends in real
time using Twitter and smartphones
7.4 SOCIAL SHOPPING: CONCEPTS,
BENEFITS, AND MODELS

Involvement in shopping is a natural area for social net- Concepts and Content of Social Shopping
works. Although shopping in social networks is only begin-
ning to grow, it has enormous potential. Leading the Social shopping is done in social networks (e.g., Polyvore,
movement of social shopping are Facebook and Google Wanelo), in vendors’ socially oriented stores, in stores of
(Knight 2016). In this section, we cover the essentials of special intermediaries (such as Groupon.com), and on social
social shopping. networks. The buyers are social customers that trust and/or
enjoy social shopping. As will be seen later in this section,
there is a wide range of social shopping models that utilize
Definitions and Drivers of Social Shopping many of the Web 2.0 tools as well as social communities.
The nature of shopping is changing, especially for brand
Shopping is, by nature, a social activity. Social shopping name clothes and related items. For example, popular brands
(also known as sales 2.0) is online shopping with social are sold by e-tailers such as Gap (gap.com), Shopbop (shop-
media tools and platforms including five social networks. It bop.com), and InStyle (instyle.com). In addition, fashion
is about sharing shopping experiences with friends. Social communities such as Stylehive (stylehive.com) and Polyvore
shopping blends e-commerce and social media. Thus, social (polyvore.com) help promote the season’s latest fashion col-
commerce takes the key features of social media (e.g., dis- lections. Social shoppers are logging on to sites like Net-A-
cussion groups, blogs, recommendations, reviews) and uses Porter (net-a-porter.com) to buy designer clothes online.
them before, during, and after shopping. They can also log on to sites such as ThisNext (thisnext.
An overview of social shopping is provided by Turban com), create profiles, and blog about their favorite brands.
et al. (2016). For practical issues of social commerce, see digitalintelli-
gencetoday.com/social-shopping-101-a-practitioners-
The Drivers of Social Commerce prime.
There are two basic practices for deployment of social
The following are the major drivers of social shopping: shopping:
For more on social shopping, do a Google search for social
shopping. Also see Kimball (2013) for an infographic and 1. Add social software, apps, and features (e.g., polling) to
webtrends.about.com/od/web20/a/social-shopping.htm. existing e-commerce sites.