The future of retailing involves the creation of a liberating shopping experience. A 24/7 shopping experience where customers have the freedom to purchase your products when and where they want to and wherever they connect. And all with a little help from their friends.
Social commerce includes traditional (in store) commerce, e-commerce, m-commerce (mobile), f-commerce (Facebook), s-commerce (social) and v-commerce (video-enabled, eg. YouTube). (2011 shopping trends from Retail-it.info)
Mobile Shopping Experience
Mobile shopping can help a customer find a store, contact your customer service department and search for product. But most retailers are just beginning to launch apps that are enabling the mobile user to check store product availability and make purchases.
Facebook Commerce
Everyone’s been talking about Levi’s deployment of Facebook social plugins to enable social shopping and benefit from word of mouth marketing on their e-commerce site – at minimum cost. And P&G recently opened Facebook stores for Tide, Gillette, Olay, Gain, CoverGirl, Luvs and Febreze.
Video Commerce
Zappos embraces social video marketing by filming their staff showcasing their newest shoes. This provides customer feedback on their YouTube channel and a way to interpret what will be a hot product in store. And French Connection’s use of video commerce on YouTube is nothing short of inspiring.
American Express recently launched their “Tales from True Tweets” television campaign, promoting their rewards points as The Social Currency.
How is your business embracing the social shopping experience?
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