Viralogy

Pulling in nearly $11 million dollars last Thursday, Groupon’s Gap deal was by far one of the most popular and most publicized online ‘deals’ that the consumer market has seen in quite some time. In what looked like a frenzy at times with 534 Gap offers being sold a minute during the early stretch of it’s release on the daily deal site, the Groupon Gap campaign brought in $11 million dollars and and sold 445,000 vouchers for Gap all in one day. Groupon’s Gap deal was it’s first nationwide deal and is sure to set the wheels in motion for others.

It Wasn’t Just The Deal

While the deal itself was a bargain ($50.00 worth of Gap merchandise for $25.00), what made this offer explode and go viral was through the help of social media and technology. Through a combination of Digg’s, social networks Twitter & Facebook, along with an email announcement, Groupon was able to utilize their existing networks to expand the reach of the offer. (more…)

With the success of deal sites like group-buying service GroupOn, brick-and-mortar retailers may find it useful to tie their deals and loyalty programs more closely to the web and mobile devices.

Recently, Discover, Barclays, Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile announced that they would be working together to find a way to eventually eliminate debit and credit cards in favor of paying with smartphones. In the meanwhile, Verizon has put $400,000 into a mobile application called CardStar. (more…)

Payvment, the application that allows people to sell products on their Facebook pages, recently unleashed a new API in their launch of new tools for retailers and online product catalogs. Yesterday, the application demonstrated its ability by releasing its first export tool, which allows Payvment users to import Etsy inventories right onto Facebook for easy selling.

The Etsy import tool launch marks the beginning of a possible trend of small eCommerce businesses importing and exporting goods to and from Facebook. Retailers that do not have their own websites can create mini-stores by utilizing this Facebook application.

Payvment’s Utility to Small Retailers (more…)

As one of the largest airlines in the world, Delta Air Lines have pushed their reach even further by introducing the first ever social commerce channel by an airline on Facebook. Partnering with Alvenda, Delta Air allows Facebook fans the ability to book flights as well as share their travel plans with family and friends on what Delta has called “Delta’s Ticket Window.” With nearly 40,000 Facebook fans as well as a presence on Twitter (@DeltaAssist), Delta continues to push along the growing trend of social commerce. (more…)

When you have a lot of competitors, you need to build brand loyalty to ensure that your customers stay with you. With social commerce making the relationship between stores and customers more personal, it is time for retailers to take advantage of their existing resources.

Paul Marsden over at Social Commerce Today pointed out a brilliant move made by Starbucks that we just have to share with you. Recently, the international coffee chain partnered up with Gilt Groupe, a members-only retailer for luxury bounty hunters, to offer to Starbucks loyalty card holders early access to their limited-edition luxury coffee. Basically, MyStarbucksRewards holders received a VIP access email to a private sale of  a luxury coffee item (San Cristóbal coffee from the Gálapagos islands). This private sale was a day before Gilt members themselves got access, and weeks before the general public received the good. There are two main reasons why we think this was a great idea: (more…)

According to a survey of Fortune 1000 and Forbes 200 marketing executives conducted by Duke University and the American Marketing Association released earlier this year, social media spending will double in the next year. While there has been a growing sentiment amongst marketing professionals that online marketing is the way of the future, the hard numbers reinforce the notion that traditional marketing dollars will continue to drop: (more…)

Personalized product recommendations can be done on any eCommerce website. As Darren Vengroff of Mashable points out, just about anyone can figure out how build an application that utilizes Facebook Social Graph to collect data for usage. He also points out, however, that not everyone knows how to leverage that data correctly - there is just too much information to be had.

The Problem for Personalization Tools (more…)