social commerce

Originally published in Harvard Business Review.

It's that time of year again — time to take a stab at what's going to matter in the year ahead as technology continues to influence how we work and live. In previous years, I've looked at trends under the "social media" lens because that has been the major disruptive force, creating both opportunities and threats. This year, I'm using the umbrella term "social-digital" to broaden the focus. First, a quick re-cap from last year:

Guest Post by: Rick Burgess

Why we have price tags

The concept of a price tag on every product is actually a relatively recent idea. Up until about a hundred years ago, the expected method of purchasing something from a store was to select what you wanted and then barter for the price you wanted to pay.

Guest Post by: Jo Stratmann

Today sees the US-based launch of Mashalot –  a site that has been termed as the “the first online marketplace embedded in social media”.

PepsiCo UK, the company behind famous CPG brands such as Gatorade, 7up or Walkers may not be a high-tech giant as such but it has a knack for joint innovation anyway. The company indeed created an innovation challenge entitled PepsiCo10, the aim of which is to reward 10 digital entrepreneurs in the fields of social commerce and mobile technologies out of 130 applicants.

"Groupon is Hastening the Demise of the Newspaper Industry," wrote a daily deals trade pub in April.

It could be the other way around.

As much as the car chieftains of Detroit try to fight it, America is slowly but surely turning away from the concept of car ownership. Instead, hundreds of thousands of Americans are choosing to share their cars by the hour and by the day - especially in densely-packed urban areas, where the total cost of car ownership is incredibly high.

Guest Post by: Simon Phillips

Let’s face it, some of the purchases we make are just not as exciting as others. There are some products we just have to buy each week and we don’t really think about them too much unless we run out. By virtue that they are so commonplace that in some cases they are true commodities.

Group buying platforms like Groupon and LivingSocial are growing rapidly. Such platforms aggregate consumer demand in order to purchase goods or services at a significant discount. A minimum number of customers must commit to purchase before the offer can be fulfilled for all.

Every time people share an event from Eventbrite with their friends and contacts in social media or by email, they generate $1.78 in ticket sales. This figure comes from a recent study by the event ticketing site which analysed their user data and how shares in social media and by email tracked back to ticket sales. This is a surprisingly powerful number and shows the growing importance of social shopping – using recommendations in social networks and online communities to influence purchase decisions.

In their new book What's Mine is Yours, Rachel Botsman and Roo Rogers brilliantly capture the current socio-economic zeitgeist. While the last 50 years were all about the hyper-consumerism fueled by advertising and credit, the current period is all about the creation of a new model of collaborative consumption that is based on a belief in the commons, trust between strangers and new ways to exploit excess capacity.