Overstock.com, an online discount retailer, recently started a social networking feature that is designed to build trust among users of its new auction service.
The great thing about my ideas is that somehow I feel as if I am ahead of the curve, if not by a few weeks, bt at times by a few months. With sites like Friendster and others where people help each other to find love and roomates, the new idea is to use that for retial. With eBay proving consumer to consumer sales can work, now other places are doing it as well. But this takes it to a new level. A level that goes beyond just having a link to a forum that reviews consumers thoughts in one post on a message board.
Now its about community shopping.
Just my idea for Search Advertising where users have their own user pages on stuff that they are looking for on-line. Other people can view it and eventually gab about it on the community area of the site (even rate user pages for the best on specific topics). When Modblog goes Extreme, there will be even more feaures for users to blog about whatever along with searching for stuff. They can join a larger community of bloggers that talk about anything and everything or choose not to blog at all but still use their personal search advertising website to gather stuff around the internet. If they want, they can also have other users shop for them on-line to find stuff.
On the community board you can post what your selling as well, give shout outs to family and friends, announcments and othet things as I think of them.
One would never think that internet advertising costs would ever be on the rise after the bubble, but it is, so the best way to advertise you wears is by word of mouth.
My own little venture is more of a thesis project, and a way of helping to educate people on money affairs. Also, anyone who is interested in media marketing and business management should also find my site something to come to.
Anyway, here is the original story link with snippet:
SOURCE: NYTIMES
Shopping With My Friendsters
By BOB TEDESCHI
Published: November 8, 2004
SOCIAL networking Web sites like Friendster.com and Tickle.com have been a boon to singles looking for a friend or a mate. Now social networking services - tools that encourage site visitors to talk to one another - are being used to ponder big life questions, like "Should I buy that vintage porcelain monkey?"
Overstock.com, an online discount retailer, recently started a social networking feature that is designed to build trust among users of its new auction service. Late last month, Buy.com bought the social networking site Metails.com, with plans to sell items that people are buzzing about with their online friends. Analysts said more sites could follow, particularly as the cost of Internet advertising rises.
"I think this makes a lot of sense, especially for smaller sites that don't have the kind of marketing budgets that Amazon or eBay have," said Aaron Kessler, an analyst with Piper Jaffray & Company, an investment firm. "It's a good way to generate customers through word-of-mouth."
On Overstock, customers of the site's new auction channel are invited to create free personal pages, listing their interests and posting photos, among other things. As on Friendster and its ilk, users can search for others with similar interests and invite them into a personal network.
Then when someone bids on an item, they can compare notes on a particular seller or item with others in their network, or see if the seller is a friend of a friend. According to Patrick M. Byrne, Overstock's president, the idea has worked out well, especially with more expensive items like jewelry, where the possibility of fraud is greater.
"Trust is such an issue, that that's why social networking would be more powerful there than, say, books," he said.
Overstock's auction service attracted more than 25,000 item listings in its first five weeks, Mr. Byrne said, and has generated $6 million in gross merchandise sales. It is difficult to determine the extent to which social networking is responsible...
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