Community electronic commerce is a kind of conformity economy

Forbes magazine Web report: Facebook has a bright future.

Facebook offers a variety of social networking tools to help companies boost sales, the article said. For example, by deploying Facebook's "like" button on its web site, retailers offer users a convenient way to share, sponsored stories can show whether a user's buddy likes a company or a product. The 1-800-flowers.com website offered 50 Facebook credits virtual coins and 15% flower discounts to Facebook users during Valentine's Day promotions, thus attracting 4000 deals from Facebook.

Startups such as 8thBridge and payvment help companies sell products directly through Facebook, so users don't have to visit third-party websites to do their shopping. Companies that are willing to sell their products directly on Facebook are growing in number.

Facebook is an important source of traffic for online retailers, and the importance of it continues to rise, a spokeswoman said. In October 2010, Facebook's referral traffic to Amazon grew 328% per cent year-on-year, while Google slipped a 81% increase in 2%;facebook's referral traffic to ebay, and Google slipped 3%. Social networks are replacing search engines as new importers of electricity.

8thBridge has helped companies such as 1-800-flowers, Hautelook and Brooks Brothers sell their products on Facebook. The company can get a lot of attention by allowing users to do their shopping directly in the news feed stream through their Facebook storefront.

With this service, the enterprise can display a video-like element in the news feed, and when the user clicks on the "play" arrow, they can quickly understand the product and complete the purchase process. Wade Gerten, the 8thBridge CEO, Wede Gotten that users will be 18 times times more likely to shop directly in the news feed than to go shopping on a third-party web site. In addition, opening a store in news feeds can significantly increase the willingness of users to share products with their friends.

"The trend is that more people are listening to their friends on Facebook and fewer people are listening to the brand." "Gotten said.

In a flash-shopping campaign organised by designer retailer Hautelook last December 7, 8theBridge sold 100,000 of dollars of designer Diane Furstenberg (Diane von Furstenberg) in one day, 40% From newly registered Hautelook members. To motivate users, they will provide 10 of dollars in coupons to attract a new member. The final shopping conversion rate is as high as 6%, much higher than the traditional channel. Hautelook was recently bought by US retailer Nodstrom for $180 million.

Gotten admits the business is still in its early stages, but he expects Facebook's retail sales to reach $100 million this year.

The 8thBridge is also planning to launch a new travel planning application for Facebook's donkey friends. For example, 3 family members living in different cities can arrange for the whole family to go to Disneyland, and determine the time of flight, hotel information or purchase tickets and other activities. The product is based on Facebook's natural communications advantage and is expected to become an interesting e-business application.

Kevin Ranford, vice president of 1-800-flowers.com Network Marketing, said the company Kevin Lanfo to attract users to buy flowers and other gifts for friends.

"This approach can be a good way to attract transactions and provide users with a seamless experience." They can publish their status on Facebook, chat with friends and post photos. This model is very successful, it will not disturb their interaction, but also to buy gifts. ”

Ayvment is another start-up that helps companies sell their products directly through Facebook, with 6,000 of companies currently using the company's technology. But Payvment technology belongs to self-service, and customer scale is usually smaller than 8thbridge--majority is small and medium-sized enterprises.

Payvment's stores are usually installed on the retailer's Facebook page, which attracts companies with a large number of Facebook fans. But for smaller or fledgling companies, it is hard to generate too many deals. To deal with this situation, Payvment launched the shopping mall service this February, bringing together all the businesses that use payvment stores. Payvment CEO Christian Thelles (Christian Taylor) said this approach boosted the exposure of businesses and boosted sales.

"They don't always put all their inventory on Facebook, but they pick up top products and offer high discounts to Facebook fans to boost participation." "he said.

One feature of Payvment's shopping cart technology is that when a user leaves a store, the product does not disappear from the cart. The goods that users buy through different payvment stores can coexist in the shopping cart, so that they can be settled in a lump sum, and the merchant can receive payment from consumers immediately.

Unlike 8thBridge, Payvment will not charge Facebook stores, but will eventually be able to charge for services that simplify the process of buying goods.

The Consumer-to-consumer market can also benefit from Facebook, which is more trustworthy than dealing with strangers on Craigslist, through Facebook, with friends or friends. Businesses in this area include Yardseller, Oodle and Facebook's own marketplace. Of course, virtual goods are also an important business, and Facebook will extract 30% of the split from the credits virtual currency. However, this differs from other areas of E-commerce. Unlike credits, Faebook does not currently extract any of the physical goods sold through its platform. (part of the above is from Forbes: Facebook has a bright future)

In China, the largest E-commerce platform Taobao is also doing community E-commerce attempts, Taobao launched in 09 Amoy Rivers and lakes, there are reprint, voting, inquiries, experience, banks, sharing, talent, brand stores. Its Amoy rivers and lakes in the Amoy share-follow the purchase and many other tools are able to help enterprises improve the application of sales.

November 2010, Taobao on the basis of the introduction of the first phase of "follow the purchase" activities. Taobao "Follow the purchase" project leader told reporters: "At present through the Amoy share of product sharing, there are 80多万件 products to support ' Follow the purchase ', these products will have a certain discount."

Night Dyeing days Incense flagship store to participate in this activity, the original price is 78 yuan of playing underwear, by clicking "Follow the purchase" link buyer can buy this product at a low price of 39 yuan. With the buyer's real praise, Half-price promotional price attractive, November 20 to 22nd, only two days, "Korean version does not fall velvet double-decker imitation Denim" created 2000 single sales miracle.

"Activities that two days, our four-digit customer service computer continuity panic." "At the end of the event, our staff began to pack frantically and the parcels piled up to cover the warehouse door," said the night. "In the night to dye the day incense," Follow the purchase is too powerful to be described in words.

He Yi that the essence of community e-commerce is a herd economy. For buyers, one of the most important factors affecting their buying decisions is the advice of friends and relatives. Similarly, most online shoppers are now more confident that buyers of the product will be judged than sellers. Fundamentally, buyers always believe that people who stand in the same position, even strangers. As Gotten said, "The trend is that there are more and more people listening to friends on Facebook and fewer people listening to their brands." ”。

He Yi that the current problem with social networks is that relationships are too thin, stickiness is too low, and trust has not yet been established. Whether it's a foreign Facebook, domestic network, Renren, or Sina Weibo, QQ space, relations are too thin, most of these sites as information access, entertainment, chat tools, social networks on the relationship between people mostly stop in the interests, hobbies, communication level. No social network can satisfy the user's access to information, entertainment, communication, shopping behavior, stickiness is not thick enough, in the trust, except the usual chat exchange, people rarely have money transactions (e-commerce) behavior, no transaction there is no business evaluation, no business evaluation without business integrity transfer.

Community e-commerce is based on the user relationship of Word-of-mouth conformity business, user relationship strength, user relationship of trust transmission mechanism will be the core factor restricting its development. Because business pay good faith transactions, any enterprise and individual can not guarantee their sales of products or services hundred no flaws, this is an objective reality, but also unavoidable fact. If the Community e-commerce is to develop, it is necessary to establish and develop a relationship evaluation, trust delivery, user protection, bad sellers exposure management mechanism, so that relationship and trust can be evaluated, sustainable development and delivery. Only in this way, the relationship of community E-commerce-trust chain can be healthy growth, long-term development.

He Yi that community electronic commerce will also promote the integration and unification of virtual ego.