The Future of Social Shopping

Going beyond the Facebook fan page

Retailers are exploring a new frontier in social commerce as they go beyond simply offering Facebook pages and Twitter profiles for their customers to follow.

Fueling this trend is web retailers’ quick adoption of social sign-on, which allows consumers to log in to their Facebook account instead of registering on an ecommerce site. Social sign-on gives retailers access to rich profile information for targeting customers.

“Bringing Facebook profile data into retail sites makes sense because it influences consumers when they are close to conversion,” said Jeffrey Grau, eMarketer principal analyst and author of the new report “Social Commerce: Personalized and Collaborative Shopping Experiences.” “In contrast, many consumers on Facebook are mainly socializing with friends and further removed from making purchase decisions.”

Read more at eMarketer