Segmentation 03Heitz-Spahn. How "Social Contagion" Affects Consumers' Willingness to Try Online Retailers. For traditional retailers, location, location, location is an all-too-familiar mantra, with stores made or broken by factors such as traffic flow, demographics and parking. But what about the brave, new and often perilous world of Internet retailing, where the physical location of a store is meaningless? How, when customers and competitors are geographically dispersed, does an online retailer’s customer base evolve? A recent study by Wharton marketing professor David R. Bell offers some intriguing answers. In his research paper, “Social Contagion and Trial on the Internet: Evidence from Online Grocery Retailing,” Bell studied the effect of word-of-mouth or other “social contagion” factors on consumer willingness to try an online retailer. The study, co-authored by Wharton PhD candidate Sangyoung Song, used data provided by Netgrocer.com that spanned nearly 30,000 U.S. zip codes over the first 45 months of the online grocer’s business life.
The State of Online Retailing. The Psychology of Social Commerce. I want to buy based on feedback from friends like me. The great recession set the stage for new buying behaviors. Shoppers want to connect; and when they buy, they want to do so with greater certainty. A more conservative buyer is shopping. They have a growing distrust of advertising and branded social sites; and a greater need to connect them with ”friends like me!” As a result, the federation and unification of review data across multiple websites is a foundational element to the Rise of Social Commerce. This federated content combined with the use of expert insight –doctors, lawyers, sports enthusiasts– has two primary drivers: Let’s connect quicker! In this case study, the Pros and Cons are easily displayed and there is tabbed navigation to enable a user to quickly find reviews from people like them.
If you don’t believe that the use of reviews is a powerful driver of customer buying decisions, get it straight from the mouths of the customer’s themselves. Tagged as: expotv, powerreviews, rise of social commerce, video reviews. Who Are the Top Retailers on Social Media? [INFOGRAPHIC] It's become practically mandatory that brands incorporate social media into their business strategy, causing retailers to compete for popularity in stores and on the Internet, too. Campalyst has provided this infographic, which covers the largest Internet retailers in the U.S., and their presence on the five key social networks: Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Google+ and Pinterest. Victoria's Secret is the top retailer on Facebook, with nearly 18.5 million fans, followed by Walmart with about 15 million fans.
According to Campalyst, 97% of the Top 250 Internet Retailers are on Facebook, and average number of fans there is close to 1 million. On Twitter, Major League Baseball is the leading Internet retailer account with 1.9 followers. The brand also has the most on Google+, boasting more than 600,000 followers. Retail channels on YouTube do not show numbers as large as the other social platforms. SEE ALSO: 8 Strategies for Launching a Brand Presence on Pinterest.