Social Shopping 101: An Online Holiday Shopping Q&A with SCG Principal Clay McDaniel

• Dec 9th, 2009
• Posted by Spring Creek Group
• Posted in Social Shopping

 Recently we sat down and picked the brain of Spring Creek Group Principal Clay McDaniel about the topic that’s dancing around like sugar plums in peoples’ heads this Holiday season – shopping, or more specifically social shopping.

Q: What is Social Shopping?

 We all know that the Internet has seriously changed the way we shop. With the meteoric rise of social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook, we’re about to enter a whole new dimension – social shopping. Social Shopping combines the power of social networks with e-commerce. People visit social shopping sites to share deals, bargains, promotions, product recommendations and reviews to help each other make better purchase decisions. This Holiday season, social shopping will be in full effect. In fact, according to the National Retail Federation (NRF), almost half of online retailers (47%) plan to increase their use of social media this Holiday season. Meaning there is power in numbers: if we consumers share bargains and deals with one another, we can save a big chunk of change.  But you do need to know where to look. 

Q: Should I become Facebook friends with brands or companies?

If you are a genuine supporter of a product or company and plan to make purchases at some point, it’s probably worth it to ‘fan’ their page. It’s a free and easy way to get exclusive deals, offers and freebies. Some brands even offer an initial joining gift when you fan their page. If the deals don’t turn out to be compelling, simply ‘defriend’ them.

Q: How can I use Twitter to find deals?

Think of Twitter like as a real-time search engine. Every minute of every day, sites and brands are tweeting about exclusive deals and discounts. Seeing “limited-time” offers used to mean you had days, or even weeks, to take advantage of a good deal.  With Twitter, many of the deals shared work only for an hour or so.

You can follow your favorite brands, restaurants and stores to get their deals directly, and you can also follow @woot, @bingcashback, @slickdeals, and @fatwallet to find out about the best deals happening each day. These services track and tweet deals, coupons and discounts on a wide variety of products. Some of the promotions are only for Twitter followers, so you can’t get them elsewhere, and most are short in duration.

You can also use hashtags to find good deals. Great ones to follow are #holidaydeals, #coupon, #cybermonday and #savings. If you are looking for something specific try a hashtag for the particular product such as #wii or #zhuzhupets. Another option is to create a specific Twitter list for deals that is separate from your main feed. Some great local companies to follow are @theindustryshop, @REI_CoOp, @EE_Robbins, @myjulep, @tottiniseattle and @goodbyn.

Q: What is “Group Gifting”?

It’s an old practice – improved by the new social Internet. Say you want to chip in with others and provide one special gift to a teacher, co-worker, friend or family member. Small sites like lolligift.com, edivvy.com, dreambank.org and wisheo.com have made this concept their bread-and-butter. Some big retailers are also experimenting with the group gifting concept on their sites.  Best Buy recently launched a “Pitch In” program, where shoppers can register online for gifts they want, and send a notice to friends and relatives via e-mail or social networking sites like Facebook. Gift-givers can then sign up for the program online to pay for a portion of the listed items.  

Q: What are “Private Sales”?

One of the fastest-growing e-commerce trends today are “private sale” sites that offer steep discounts on off-season luxury items for a limited time. Gilt.com and RueLaLa are popular in the fashion space, while OneKingsLane focuses on furniture and housewares. The sites are “members only”, but they are free to join. Simply sign up to get the daily email from these private sales detailing what brands are on offer today. Woot.com offers just one product for sale per day, but it often sells out fast if it’s a really good deal.

We hope this answers some of your questions about social shopping, and makes your gift-giving a little easier this Holiday season. If you have additional social shopping tips or advice, please feel free to share.