Online shopping using real-time information (part 2)

As promised, I will now present part 2 of the real time e-commerce story. Looking at trends on the internet, it is clear that social communities become more and more important. E-commerce and online shopping cannot escape from this phenomenon, which is particularly shown in the USA, where social shopping increases in popularity. Social shopping combines e-commerce with traditional shopping and can exist both online and in the real world. The idea behind it is to make use of the wisdom of the crowd: communicating with users and collect information about products and prices.

Online social shopping

For online social shopping, social network environments are often used. Users create shopping lists which they can share with their friends. Some websites reward their users for their participation, for instance when they share information with the community. The participants often receive reputations points or even real money. An example of a website with such policy is Wishabi. So at the one hand, this is beneficial for customers, because it is easier for them to find cheap products. On the other hand, the reach of companies increases dramatically because of these social communities and information sharing behavior.

Social shopping in the ‘real world’

Social shopping also exists in the real world, sharing your shopping stories with people you know. Imagine that you are in a clothes store and picks one item. The mirror reflects your image, but you also see celebrities wearing the same item. Meanwhile a webcam takes a picture of you and projects it on a website for your friends to see. They can advice you whether to buy the actual item or not. So real-world social shopping makes it possible to connect the customer inside the store with his social community outside the store.


Your item displayed in the clothes store

We’ve seen a few examples of online shopping using real-time information, which can be machine generated information but also information which comes directly from your friends. I hope I have made it clear that this field of study is rapidly developing and becomes more and more important in the marketing strategy of many companies.

Online shopping using real-time information (part 1)

While the internet offers more and more real-time information, the content on most webshops is particularly outdated. Yes, it is possible to see opinions of your fellow consumer, but these reviews are mainly from a month or even a year ago. These webshops doesn’t use the fundamental power of the internet: direct and real-time interaction.

Over the past years e-commerce have made it possible to buy and sell products or services via the internet. This online marketing develops more and more towards real-time e-commerce. Examples of these developments are live banners, which refresh real-time to show the current prices, and live campaigns, which stop automatically when all products are sold. Another example is live e-mail, in which content is composed only at the time of opening. Because the content in the e-mail is associated with the inventory system of the related company, it will always show the current situation. As a result, the consumer is always able to see what products already have been sold out.

Live e-mail, showing a product that already has been sold out

Live shopping

Live shopping is an alternative to traditional online shopping. Mostly a single product is temporary offered for a very favorable price, often the daily lowest on the internet. The price of this product is usually far below the recommended selling price. Because the offer is temperorary, consumer have to decide quickly whether to buy it or not, resulting in many impulsive purchases. The American company Woot was the first company to launch this idea of offering one product for 24 hours at a very low price.

Live shopping at Woot

These examples of real-time e-commerce are particularly from the Business to Consumer (B2C) point of view. Next time I will be back with another example of real-time e-commerce, in which social communities become more and more important. So keep following this blog!

Olympic Games and social media

The most important thing in the Olympic Games is not winning but taking part. This old statement still applies to most athletes, but also more or less to the audience. Since the start of the Olympics last Friday, sports fanatics are trying hard to participate in their own way by keeping informed about news and results from Vancouver. To reach these fans, several organizations are reporting on the Games via various channels, mainly consisting of social media. But where can you find these channels? An overview is listed below.

Google

Using the slogan ‘Get Inside the Games with Google Maps’, Google offers several tools to get their visitors involved. They offer specific information about events, medals and even about the athletes themselves. Another nice option is the possibility to take a look at the Olympic Village and sporting venues via Street View, which almost gives people the feeling that they are in Vancouver themselves. The www.google.com/games10 website is available in 42 languages.

Twitter

The Twitter page of the Vancouver Organizing Committee (Vanoc) has recently passed the barrier of 10,000 followers. Their aim is to keep you informed with ‘timely tweets from the Vanoc Communications Team’. Because Twitter is a powerful medium to spread news fast, http://twitter.com/2010tweets will serve you to keep up-to-date.

Facebook

Not surprisingly, you can find many pages and groups which are related to the Olympic Games on Facebook. The biggest one at the moment, http://www.facebook.com/olympicgames, is very active and has more than 1.3 million fans. The page shares a lot of content on the Olympics, like information about events and a forum which can be used to discuss with other fans. You can also play Vancouver mini games and there’s a photo contest, inviting fans to submit their coolest photo of the Games.

Hyves

The Vancouver 2010 hyve works together with NOC*NSF, which is the official organization for sports in the Netherlands. The page, which can be found at http://olympischespelen.hyves.nl/, has more than 13,000 members. You can find the Olympic schedule as well as several blogs, gadgets and pictures on Vancouver. Last but not least, it is possible to pimp your Hyves profile into the Olympic style.

Using these social media, it is almost impossible to miss essential information about our Olympic heroes. Wish you lots of fun while following the Olympic Games!

Hello World!

Please allow me to introduce myself. I’m a Tilburg University student following the course Media Use In Organizations. As the name says itself, interactivity is a major point in this course. It forces all of its students to use Twitter and write blogs about media in organizations. The word ‘forces’ sounds negative, I can almost hear you thinking, but no it isn’t that bad. It's the opposite. I think everyone should more or less be forced to get familiar with all kinds of social media, because it has a great potential.

But more on that later. This is my first blog and I was introducing myself. In my upcoming blogs, I will concentrate on the use of ICT in organizations, focusing on social media. Looking at myself, I have already used social media like Hyves, Facebook and LinkedIn for quite a long time. And since the start of this course I also find myself Twittering now and then. The more I use these social media, the more I realize the benefits it has for both individuals and organizations.

My aim for this blog is to gain attention for this topic and to reach as many people as possible. I will not only blog about social media, I will also use them. I made a sort of agreement with them like ‘I am going to blog about online media, so ok, at least you can help me to reach as many people as possible’. So now me and my social media have reached the point of mutual dependence. While writing this I realize I better blog nice about them, but on the other hand I promise I’ll always be objective. Let’s see what it will bring.

And now, let’s talk about you. You’re one of the, I assume (or hope), many visitors of this weblog. This means you are part of the ‘traffic’. And now it becomes interesting, because analyzing the traffic on this blog is another part of this course. Using Google Analytics, it is possible to analyze some characteristics of visitors. So this means that Big Brother is watching you! Well, no it’s not that scary, don’t be afraid. I am able to see the different types of visitors on my blog, their different countries and that kind of stuff. This is quite interesting because it also says something about the reach of my social media. The more powerful they are, the more potential visitors I gain. Keeping that in mind, I promise I also keep you informed about that.

After all, this means that you are also a quite important part for me during this course. I am going to inform you the best I can about Media Use in Organizations, developments in social media like Hyves, Facebook and Twitter, and so on. And on the other hand, you are my traffic on this blog. Is this another example of mutual dependence? I hope so.

Pleased to meet you! Hope to see you again on my next blog!

Sebastiaan