Social Shopping: the Continuous Evolution of Online Shopper Marketing

In 2012 we saw social media and ecommerce evolve together in many unique ways, and at birdsong gregory, our shopper marketing agency expects that to increase in 2013. Consider how a site like Fancy lets shoppers rely on the opinions of those in their social networks to help make purchase decision.

Fancy is a visual cataloging service similar to Tumblr, FFFFound and Pinterest. Via a bookmarklet, you can flag and import pictures of pretty much anything from other websites into your Fancy profile. You can also download pictures and text into your profile as well. Or you can snap a photo of a favorite product from Fancy’s iPhone app. You can tag photos (i.e. shoes, furniture) to make them searchable on the site.

Fancy describes itself as “a blog, magazine, wishlist and store catalog rolled into one,” which is pretty accurate. The social component of Fancy allows you to follow other users whose product and image collections you like. You can save other products listed on users’ profiles to your profile and you can access a feed of new products added by the users you follow. Users can also embed Fancy images on other websites. And the stark design of the site is visually appealing when combined with the images that users add.

In addition, Fancy, now lets users conducting transactions directly on its site. Previously, users could click on a link listed with an item to buy it on a third-party site. Now they can shop directly on Fancy – and the site will take a cut of every purchase.

Fancy provides an example of one way Pinterest could eventually monetize its site. It may not have Pinterest’s user base, but it does have investors backing it that could help it grow quickly. Among them are Ashton Kutcher and Bob Pittman, the founder of MTV. Holding company PPR, which has a portfolio that includes Gucci, Puma, Bottega Veneta, Alexander Mcqueen, among others, is also a shareholder.

Meanwhile, everybody at our Charlotte marketing agency is less interested in whether Fancy is ever going to go head-to-head with a market leader like Pinterest, and more concerned whether there is indeed room for more than one significant social image-cataloging site on the Worldwide Interweb.

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