With less than 5% of retail transactions taking place online, there’s room for growth in online shopping. And I think some radically different concepts are called for. Social shopping could be one of those concepts…especially a social shopping site run by women. Is social shopping a business or just a feature? We’ll see. I’ve talked about Wists, Kaboodle, and StyleHive. Here are three recent entrants to the market.
ThisNext – “Every product on ThisNext is picked by the ThisNext community (That means you!). You can organize your picks into product playlists we call shopcasts. Our goal is to help people discover great and deeply gratifying products.” I will take a closer look soon…funny story, I interviewed with Gordon Gould (ThisNext’s CEO) way way back in the Silicon Alley boom days.
Crowdstorm – “A new way to help you find what to buy by measuring the buzz around products.” Christopher Scollo details who Crowdstorm is for here, here, and here.
Zebo – “The platform that gets shoppers together to access the best-selling products at the best price. We bring products from various sellers under one roof! From apparel to wine cellars, bird houses to lace back jumpsuits , ZEBO has it all! You can browse through pictures, specifications and prices of each product from a galaxy of the finest brands on offer.” Zebo is built off of Zedo’s ad technology. Supposedly has 4m users. Thanks to Robert Leathern for the tip.
Brian, nice post on social shopping. Very true about more retail going online, and the continuing growth of the online shopping industry. I work for an e-commerce outfit, Wize.com. We also rank our products using Internet buzz, but also include expert and consumer reviews as part our Wize Rank. Give it a look.