http://viralogy.com/blog Best Practices & Conversion Strategies in Social Commerce Wed, 25 Aug 2010 20:57:17 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en 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 ... http://viralogy.com/blog/ecommerce/the-aftermath-of-groupon-and-gap/ 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 ... http://viralogy.com/blog/uncategorized/verizons-investment-in-cardstar-steps-up-mobile-commerce-game/ 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 ... http://viralogy.com/blog/case-study/payvment-facebook-applications-utility-to-small-retailers/ 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 ... http://viralogy.com/blog/social-commerce/delta-air-lines-takes-off-with-social-commerce-on-facebook/ 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 ... http://viralogy.com/blog/case-study/social-commerce-case-study-starbucks-builds-brand/ 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 ... http://viralogy.com/blog/social-commerce/social-media-spending-continues-to-increase/ 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 ... http://viralogy.com/blog/social-commerce/utilizing-data-from-facebook-social-graph/ 80% of midsized merchants deem e-commerce growth a top priority 40% say they don’t think they’re maximizing their online revenue potential. The Midsized Merchants Problem According to a recent article from Katie Deatsch of internetRetailer, "A new poll by e-commerce platform provider Art Technology Group Inc.  finds 80% of midsized merchants deem e-commerce ... http://viralogy.com/blog/social-commerce/social-commerce-will-save-midsized-merchants/ General vs. Social Recommendations – Getting More Personal Ratings and reviews are consistently top-requested features by customers of ecommerce stores. In the last few years, huge companies such as Amazon have more than answered that call with sophisticated recommendation technology, and their answer has revolutionized the online shopping ... http://viralogy.com/blog/social-commerce/the-evolution-of-social-shopping/ A recent study by the Harvard Business Review shows that customers value self-service, whether online or at a kiosk, just as much as they value personal customer service.  The most important factor of the study is that "By and large, this indifference holds regardless of their age, demographic, issue type, ... http://viralogy.com/blog/ecommerce/do-shoppers-like-the-personal-touch/