How online shopping is becoming as social as shopping on the high-street
by Natalie Martin
I love shopping online. I can do it from the comfort of my home, not having to rush from shop to shop and then back to the first shop again, deal with fitting room queues or worry about buying something before closing time. If I have something in particular in mind then it’s also great being able to search for it with the whole internet at my fingertips and specify what price, colour or brand I want. And I’m not the only one! According to Nielsen over 875 million of us have shopped online, with that number increasing 40% from two years ago. And despite falls in sales on the high-street, online shopping has seen a 13% rise on 2008 with the most popular purchases being Books, Clothing & Accessories, DVDs & Games, Tickets and Electronic Equipment.
But shopping online can sometimes be a bit solitary. It doesn’t replace going shopping on the high street with your friends and picking out clothes together and it doesn’t replace the buzz you get from having loads of shopping bags full of new things that you can’t wait to try on again at home. So that’s why online shopping had to evolve into something more visually and socially appealing. And with the boom in social networking sites and niche communities social shopping was born. OSOYOU was one of the first online shopping communities and was launched in 2007. It acts as an aggregator of fashion and beauty products with 49 of the top retailers on there. But shoppers can also create their own profile, chat with each other in forums and drag products into their own “style file” to show off their most wanted items.
Retailers have been catching onto social shopping and realising the benefits that social media can bring to their business. Social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter have over 200 million users between them and can be a great platform on which companies can increase brand awareness and engage with potential customers. Over 20,000 companies have branded themselves on Facebook to date, allowing users to become fans of their page. This means that any updates that companies make appear in their news feeds, which is brilliant for retailers like H&M who have over 1 million fans – any sales or new products that H&M wish to promote can be easily done and keep the brand at front of mind. It also empowers customers because it allows them to instantly reach a company to give feedback on a product they have bought or a service that they have received.
Some retailers have started to build their own communities by allowing customers to create profiles and interact on message boards. This is a great way to increase traffic to their website and improving SEO results. Fashion retailer ASOS launched their community “ASOS life” in May 2009 and now has almost 800,000 members. It’s a brilliant community for fashionistas to talk about what’s hot and how to wear it and upload their own photos. The key to the success of this community has to be that ASOS employees have a daily input into the community by writing blogs and chatting to other members on the forums. From a marketing perspective this is gold as it allows ASOS to put a face to the brand, allowing ASOS to build up relationships with customers and maintaining them by sharing fashion advice, and helping to solve any issues to keep them a happy customer. It keeps a steady flow of traffic to the website and a constantly updated website improves SEO results.
But none of this is like the experience of the high street. So how can online retailers emulate it? Coast has a “virtual fitting room” on their website, which allows you to select items and they automatically fit together like an outfit. Not only that but you can invite your friends to join you in the fitting room so that you can all pick outfits, see each other’s and chat – in real-time! Ok so it’s not as fun as in person but at least you can do it together. I guess it’s great for when you just don’t have the time to get to the shops and you can just go online for half an hour instead.
But would there ever be a time when the need for a high street is removed? When we can get all of the experience in a virtual world instead? Well maybe that time has come. Near Global is using the latest video game technology to create a 3D virtual London. It’s launching in November 09 and will replicate London’s high street complete with shops and entertainment venues. People will be able to log-on and walk down the high street using an avatar, interacting with other people that they meet along the way. The exciting thing is that some of the biggest retailers have signed up to it including John Lewis, who will be updating their shop windows monthly with new products that you will be able to view and buy!
Sounds too geeky? Maybe! Either way these developments show that the online shopping experience is continually progressing to reflect the high street, both visually and socially and one day might even take over.
Tags: Advertising Agency Manchester, ASOS life, Digital Marketing Agency Manchester, Fashion Design Advertising Agency, Fashion Marketing, H&M, Natalie Martin, Near Global, Online Marketing Agency, Online Shopping, OSOYOU, Social Shopping
