I am going to explain in this short article why there has been this shift towards a more social experience the last 2 years or so when it comes to selling and buying online. However, I am going to write this piece based on my own personal experience as both a buyer and seller with many years in the eCommerce business. Now, I might be completely absurd with my analysis here so take everything I write with a grain of salt, I don't mind, really.
So, I use to sell online quite a lot on 'eBay' (I am sure most of you know who I am referring to) back in 2003 up to 2009. I use to love selling my stuff on there as much as I enjoyed buying stuff on there. However, with the rise of social networks, such as Facebook, which was becoming huge at the time I had started selling on eBay, I realized that eBay needed to incorporate some of these social networking elements to make the buying and selling experience online more fun and interactive. Furthermore, with the rise of viral videos and companies such as YouTube and Vimeo which have seen great success, I felt like it was time the online marketplace saw some major shifts from its traditional closed community model to a more interactive, social and media rich way of conducting commerce.
Recip Saw
This begs the question then, 'why would I want to sell online' on a marketplace that has all these features. In simple terms, more sales, more leads, more trust and a better user experience for both buyers and sellers. Utilizing social networks and rich media to promote yourself as a seller will without a doubt allow buyers to find out more about sellers by visiting their Facebook pages, or adding them as friends and allowing them to know better who the person is they are buying from. This in turn adds a whole new level of trust that current marketplaces do not have. Furthermore, this extra layer of trust also means you can see which of your friends of even friends of friends have bought from the same seller by sharing and liking products and promoting commerce activity via your favorite social networks. In return sellers also see increased sale leads as they build more trust for themselves through social networking communities and by adding a touch of rich media to their product also gives the seller more exposure on the web through viral media channels which have grown in popularity and traffic over the years.