Social Commerce Going Mainstream
by Andy LloydWednesday, June 3rd, 2009
A nice piece by Jennifer Saranow Schultz ran in the Wall Street Journal this morning describing how retailers are increasingly leveraging a shoppers’ social network to move people through the conversion funnel. In it Jennifer does a great job of capturing the key aspects of the Fluid Social product.
The data we’ve been collecting from our customer installations is proving that comments from friends are the most effective way to drive immediate increases in engagement and conversion. It is good to see this topic getting attention from the mainstream business press.
June 5th, 2009 at 8:39 am
I saw this piece in the WSJ and saw your online demo of the service. I think you are building a set of services that will evolve and become increasingly useful to retailers and shoppers. Here’s my question: What if someone were to approach you with an innovative idea that builds on your good work? What if this idea played to a very attractive niche retail area and could build a popular link between retail and the social experience? Would you be interested in considering this new idea? Best, Ben Waxman
June 5th, 2009 at 2:01 pm
At Fluid we know we don’t have all the answers and are always interested in collaborating with partners, particularly in areas like social media where the ideas and usage are evolving so quickly. This applies to both technology providers and other agencies. Anyone that is interested in collaborating with Fluid should feel free to contact us.
July 10th, 2009 at 10:52 am
Andy, thanks for passing along the nice WSJ piece. I have often heard skeptics say that some consumers don’t like to listen to the advice of their friends. But, I’ve always seen it as a much more complicated scenario. For example, just because I don’t want or need my friends advice on which iPod model or color of iPod to select, I might want to know if any of my friends have an opinion on the size of the hard drive I should choose. In my mind, friends are a great (and trustworthy) resource, whether they deserve to be or not, to bounce information off of when shopping, on and offline. Sometimes, it’s just about testing our own thinking and selections, not soliciting the product recommendation itself.