Sales of goods are becoming more socially

People who value personal privacy may not be happy to display their information on the website, and digital display is a dream for them. But in the shopping information sharing network swipely, users can display their shopping card information, whenever the user brushes a credit card or debit card, the transaction information will be displayed on the site, and other users to discuss. The ultimate goal of swipely is to connect the world of cyberspace with the real world. The company's slogan is, "Turn buying into conversation."

Swipely is a new addition to the fast-growing social shopping market. Social shopping companies combine the features of E-commerce, social networking, and other online group activities. Their goal is to achieve simultaneous shopping in the web and in the real world. Swipely's boss, Angus Davis, points out that the Internet has disrupted the content industry and that business will be next.

The first generation of E-commerce site in the 1990s began to appear in the network, basically a digital mail order directory format. Web sites such as Epinions collect comments and suggestions from users, but they don't sell any of their products, most of which disappear during the dotcom bubble. Only Amazon combines sales and social feedback and gets good results. Amazon makes recommendations based on the information it collects and buys from other buyers.

Second-generation E-commerce companies are completely different and rarely come from Silicon Valley. In fact, these companies tend to take root online and often push consumers to do real shopping. Many of these companies make money by flashing (flash sales), offering discounted goods and advertising.

Vente Privée,vente vente, the boss of the French apparel industry, said that even today its focus is still on the line. Jacques-antoine Granjon founded the company with 7 Partners in 2001. Hundreds of designers, photographers and hair stylists organize online sales activities. After a slow start, Vente vente achieved rapid development. The company has more than 12 million members on its 5th local site in Europe, with revenues expected to reach around $1 billion this year.

Vente Vente's success inspired the others. The best known is the Gilt Groupe, the company that imitates the sales of goods sold by luxury retailers (sample sales). The Gilt is smaller than the Vente vente, with only 2.5 million members expected to have revenue between 400 million dollars and 500 million dollars this year. Susan Lyne, Gilt's boss, said Gilt wanted to be a platform for all kinds of social business. Gilt Groupe recently launched several local sites in the United States to offer group deals.

Gilt Groupe is entering another business based on E-commerce Web sites, which facilitates collective buying. The site offers local services every day, such as a restaurant meal, a spa service and a car rental service, with a maximum discount of 90% (essentially half price). But transactions can be achieved only when the minimum number is met. Buyers are therefore interested in spreading the new word, especially in social networks.

This site has sprung up and the most successful is Groupon. Although the company did not show up at the end of 2008, it has opened 230 local sites in 29 countries and registered users to 15 million. Having been backed by big investors, the company began expanding globally, acquiring Groupon imitators from other countries, such as Germany's citydeal.

Groupon pays more attention to people than technology. Groupon's CEO started the point site. The company employs nearly 20 million sales people around the world to identify interesting local businessmen, while 150 writers describe the deal. The company's president, Rob Solomon, explained that he wants Groupon to become a company that eventually allows small businesses to participate in E-commerce.

Sucharita Mulpuru, a market research firm, is a potential representative of the third generation of E-commerce sites, the label of which is social shopping. The company is now trying to build a business based on the social graph. Social networking users use virtual currency and smartphones, which can end up with the location of consumers.

ModCloth's website, which mainly sells clothing from independent designers, has a lively forum on Facebook that allows customers to vote on the products that the site should have. Another "nouveau riche" site is Lockerz, as long as members watch videos with ads, invite friends, and so on, will get "Pointz", using "Pointz" can get discounts. Another site similar to this one is Shopkick, a site that rewards real-world consumers, such as visiting stores and scanning products with smartphones.

For a new generation of e-commerce companies, the real world is as important as the online world. Swipely is a good example, by uploading transaction data, the start-up company has made it easy for consumers to show their friends how they spend money in the real world. At the same time, if consumers do not want to share, they can retain these trading secrets.

Does making shopping more social really change e-commerce? It is hard to predict whether second-generation and third-generation E-commerce sites can continue to grow fast, and consumers may be bored with such rapid sales, as they do with other online activities. Collective buying also has its limitations. The biggest problem with Groupon is that tens of thousands of local companies want to show themselves, but only one deal a day is available. The site has begun to act, which means that depending on age, sex and interest, different users will see different transactions. But personalization is too strong, users can only see what they already know or want, such shopping will be uninteresting.

Accel Company Investor Sonali de Rycker, a venture capital firm, believes that, regardless of the fate of these companies and sales models, E-commerce is becoming socially social. There are several old problems in retailing: The high cost of attracting users, the low probability of turning into buying behavior and returning customers. Social E-commerce provides solutions to these problems. But many pioneers will face failure or difficulty, but this is what innovators must face.