While the very organisation-specific nature of Social Media usage means that it’s unlikely you’ll find an exact fit for your own guidelines – reading how others have approached the same challenge should certainly help you set off in the right direction.

world map of social network

Here I just want to list the most important advantages that companies can obtain using this type of online sales:

1. It’s a strategy that allows quick and profitable monetization of stocks: the margins, in fact, are quite high, certainly higher than those achievable by other methods of management of stocks

2. Opportunity to reach a greater amount of consumers that don’t have the possibility to buy the specific product through the usual channels. In fact there are consumers that have difficulty in finding designer clothes or luxury brands or just find them at higher prices.

3. No overlap with the traditional distribution network, thanks to the very short duration of the campaign without damaging the image of the brand.

4. Attention on the creation of a strong relationship with the final consumers. The major players in the industry invest a lot in the creation of trailers and shooting of the products that are offered online: websites are usually pleasant, friendly, accessible, engaging, highly interactive, designed for a sophisticated and demanding audience.

5. Mailing list:  this websites have devoted much effort in collecting a mailing list, even if all the e-tailer insist on the importance of “word of mouth. Who is invited by those who have already tried the service or by companies affiliated with the service (Born4Shop, for example, can count on partners such CartaSi, Fastweb, Sole24Ore, TicketOne, RCS, Gay.it) enters for free. Other website, such as Piustyle.com charges an amount of 15 euros on the first purchase. By contrary, to feed the crowd to its site, Privalia focuses on activities of viral marketing on the web through games and competitions that can capture the interest of the people of the Net: this strategy has allowed to intercept about 40 thousand new members. Currently, one third of the Privalia’s community comes from the “member get member”,that rewards those that have invited other potential buyers. The concept of “community” is central to this E-Business, so that some operators have even created their own blogs.

6. Creation of blogs: this tool has the aim of establishing direct contact with members and increases the transparency of services and operation of the portal. Every visitor has the possibility to voice his views and suggestions and sharing them with other members and with the company.

The strategy used by websites like BuyVip and Privalia is simple: they send a warning e-mail in advance to the potential buyer (consumer that has already subscribed himself to the website). They advise that the next   day at a specific hour they will begin selling a set of proposals brands (very famous brands) at a discount, ranging from 30 to 70%, since these inventories may be part of a previous season. The short duration of offers, from a minimum of two to a maximum of five days, along with the discount benefit, play a decisive role stimulating emotional purchase and impulse: you can buy the object of desire just with a click of the mouse, and within ten days the merchandise you bought will come to your home. The product, in fact, is taken directly from the supplier (this also allows considerable savings for the client), conveyed in the stores of the website, packaged and then shipped by courier.

There are many players in this emerging market in Italy. First real national pioneers as Born4Shop and SaldiPrivati or Piustyle.com (launched by an entrepreneur with a long experience in managing inventories of branded collections and active also in Spain and Belgium). Second other players already established in other counties that are trying to replicate their strategy in Italy. This is the case of a giant like Vente-privee.com (510 million euros in turnover 2008), but also names like BuyVip or Privalia. There are of course many other players but I think they are currently too many for a market so small, specialized and relatively undeveloped like the Italian one.

What do you think?

Now in this post I want to talk about Social Commerce. 

 Social Commerce is a buzz, evoking a fusion of Social Media and  E-commerce.  Social Commerce  is a subset of electronic commerce that employs social media tools to assist online buying and selling. Some examples of social commerce are user ratings and reviews, social networking tools, online stores in social networking and social shopping,as mentioned before.

On the web we find different definitions of Social Commerce, I write here some of these:

“social commerce enabling consumers to browse,view and add products to a shopping cart, within the context of a social site,like Facebook or a blog.” Fumi Matsumoto (Allurent)

“social commerce connect and foster active partecipation with customers to help improve your customer experience,includinf ratings and reviews,blogs as well as forums and communities”. (IBM)

But what are the reasons for doing Social commerce?

Fumi Matsumoto CTO of Allurent, the company market leader in powering superior online shopping experiences, in the E-commerce Times talk about social commerce, that offers 7 reasons for doing it. http://www.ecommercetimes.com/story/68744.html.

I briefly write here what are these reasons that Matsumoto consider important for doing Social Commerce:

1) Your customer are increasingly spending time.                                                                                                     

2) Shopping is often a social activity and people will want to shop online in the same way.

3)Peer validation that is built into social commerce, and for many shoppers it’s important.

4)Produce discovery is more fun and encourage to impulse purchase when in a social context.

5) If we don’t have presence on social media,your competitors will take illegal the social bran mind-share.

6) Social it’s the mosre cost-effective way to capture traffic and market reach.

7)Social media gives you the ability to extract data and obtain market intelligence more effectively.

Although the concept of social shopping and the sites related to the subject are still a new phenomenon on the web, Veedom, compared to the competition such as StyleFeeder or MyFaveShop, adopt a new passive method. In this way it suggests products to its members without that their costumers try to find anything.

At the beginning, the only information the system needs are the interests of the subscribers from which the algorithms develop a profile of interest. Competing sites, by contrast, are much more tied to a concept of research which may be browsing the profiles of other users, or browsing by tags, or by typing a real key and then move from there through tags, user profiles etc… In other words, the competition behaves much closer to satisfying a specific need and this when the user accesses the site rather than pure discovery products and satisfy their latent needs, an area in which Veedow is focusing much.

Another important component is represented by the interaction between users who may be friends or just people with common tastes and interests.
First of all every user can save and share with the community their products, drawn from any site on the Net.
Moreover, every product can be rated, commented and tagged. Veedow does not sell products directly, however, shows that its users. The role of the service is rather to make people discover these products and links to sites from which you can then make the purchase.

The social shopping will become increasingly important, so as to become a real cornerstone in the rules for online purchase.
It’s important to consider that internet is not exclusively search-centric and the personal suggestions are important too. Obviously, research and discovery are not antagonistic or mutually exclusive, but more or less appropriate depending on context and user needs. This concept is now saying thanks to applications like Digg, Last.fm, StumbleUpon, and – why not – Veedow.

Startup Camp-London-Veedow

Every consumer relies on a specific type of social websites or company website for product and brand information. As a result, companies try to engage directly with them using this social network creating a great opportunity to not only reach more consumers, but also increase their likelihood of making a purchase. But companies should be very careful in using digital marketing tools because they have to consider the impact of online word-of-mouth that can affect the consumers purchase decision.

In Italy ecommerce websites struggling to get out the stage of comparison of products. In fact it is proposed an online consultation of the product for the next purchase in store, what in slang is defined infocommerce.
Today the sales strategies of company aims to consolidate brands. The ommunication of products put in the websites strengthens the brand and becomes a vehicle to test consumers behaviour and satisfaction of customers.

Companies not engaging in social media as part of their online marketing strategy are missing an opportunity to reach consumers.

I think the real problem is that companies are not always aware of the power of online word-of mouth. Consumers today have the possibility to convey and share their opinion with other people about products or services they have bought online. They can voice their satisfaction or dissatisfaction regarding a specific brand or company, undermining the confidence of these companies to exert full control over their consumers. If the majority of consumers convey negative experiences with a specific company that sell its products online it will lose its credibility on the web and its digital marketing effort will no longer be profitable.

In fact, if I have to buy a product on Internet I will first check on blogs, forum and other social network how are the experience of the other consumers that have bought the same product or service online. If I found that a lot of people are dissatisfied with the website that sell that product I won’t buy it on Internet.

As you said, if companies want to do e-marketing they have to assure reliability and credibility of the service they offer. They have to be able to manage complaints or dissatisfaction and try to improve their service as much as they can. What happen today is that everyone tries to do digital marketing without knowing its specific rules and strategies. I think that a company can do e-marketing only if it is consolidated in the off-line market.

Unlike the many retail sites that display products for sale, users who register with social shopping services typically create their own pages to collect information on items they find, in this way they create product lists in which they recommend their favorites, often with a strong emphasis on what’s hot, new and exciting. And insiders know that listing their own products on the right social shopping sites can build buzz that leads to sales.

This accessible form of word-of-mouth marketing offers a wealth of opportunities for entrepreneurs with limited budgets. Social shopping sites may generate revenue not only from advertising and click through, but also by sharing information about their users with retailers.

Sites like ThisNext and a handful of services like Kaboodle.com, Wists.com and StyleHive.com are spearheading this new category of e-commerce.
Kaboodle.com