Watched this interesting video about the usage patterns and statistics of the users http://vimeo.com/9641036
What is social shopping?
Social shopping allows users to shop in a social networking environment (like myspace/facebook/orkut). Using the users experience and their knowledge about a product , online users communicate and aggregate information about products, prices, and deals. Some websites allow you to see the shopping list / wishlist / search results of other users(your friends network/ those who set their settings as public) with the same interest like you.
When I was working on an online dvd/vcd (Tamil, Hindi and English movies selling portal in Malaysia) selling portal project (2003), we tried to show a particular movies details with image, cost and then shipping rates, description of the movie … as an added feature .. we used to show the related buyers behavior that “Those who bought the Thalapathy” movie, bought these titles as well … If user is trying to buy a Rajini movie “Thalapathy” … at the bottom of the details page we show some other Rajini movie … and we explained the users that how was the relevant movies listed over there. That time we were completely depend on the transaction details.
In these days, sites are allowing users to share their wish list, interest, reviews, comments, .. to other members in his network. Every thing is transparent, and definitely it will give good impression about your site (user trust fellow users than the sites own content) .
I will try to give a real world example. In my native, we used to go to the seashore in the early morning to buy fish. The fisher men will action a full basket of fishes (a particular fish variety). Let’s imagine the cost was 3000 Rs. … three guys who came there to buy fishes for 1000 Rs. … they will talk to each others or observe the action closely to get a partner to buy the same variety of fish and to pool the money. Whenever I go the I will see few known and unknown faces … but after a few day I will be able to choose my partner quickly because I knew their(known people) choices of fish and the cost usually they will spend.








