WHAT WE DO

ABOUT US

CONTACT

Rapidly exploring ideas - developing disruptive brands, user experiences and digital businesses in startup, growth and corporate environments

Making ecommerce social

Shopping online is a solitary task. Much unlike the social experience we get when walking into a store where we constantly allow other people to inspire (or annoy) us and affect our purchase decisions. Are there many people in the shop? What areas are most frequented? Is there a queue to the tills? The latter may be annoying but a sure sign of a popular store.

These are some rough sketches of how with a little visual stimuli we can communicate the number of people looking at an item, how many people are purchasing something right now, what items are close to running out etc.

What if, much like walking up to someone speaking to a store assistant and listening in, we could see when another user engages support staff be able to see that conversation in real time?

Someone should steal this idea - I’d like a shop who did this. And it probably applies to a lot more things than just shopping.

Your thoughts and comments

  1. Philip Wilkinson

    I really like the concept here David and some of the ideas can be taken online more effectively. For example, why not show stock levels more graphically to give people an idea of how close to running out something is. Perhaps the price even gets cheaper or more expensive at that point too..

    The Ask & Answer stuff is something that Crowdstorm is trying to do on products and also seen in the US with Bazaarvoice.

    Thing thing we’re trying to solve is how do you use a social crowd of people (store assistants, bloggers, experts, friends) to help you choose the right product..

  2. david

    Hey Philip, good to meet you at Seedcamp. I think we will start to see a lot more dynamic shopping experiences online. The stuff that you guys are doing is great and could really benefit from some of the ideas above.

    I guess one of the challenges for Crowdstorm right now is to grow the community without it feeling like a big empty space in the process.

    We go by the code that always get a smaller venue than you need when arranging your party. I.e. staggered launches of community features where the early ones are tailored to make it feel crowded as opposed to expose the fact that it needs more people.

Leave a Reply