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The Challenge Of Bringing Group Shopping To The Web

Written by Evan Schuman
July 9th, 2009
One of the first revelations in the earliest days of E-Commerce was that there are two polar opposite ways that consumers shop: Utilitarian (buying a replacement battery, picking up a half-gallon of milk or a case of printer paper) and Experience (clothes shopping, comparing televisions, browsing a bookstore or test-driving cars).

The Web is wonderful at replicating—and sharply improving upon—the brick-and-mortar experience when it comes to utilitarian shopping, but brick-and-mortar has a huge edge when it comes to an enjoyable experience. Yes, for some people, shopping is a recreational sport and a social outing. By the way, those people tend to spend a healthy amount of cash.

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One Comment | Read The Challenge Of Bringing Group Shopping To The Web

  1. david fishman Says:
    July 9th, 2009 at 3:19 am

    There is a lot of noise right now in the social commerce space and it will be interesting to see what precipitates. I’m sure some tech. Co. somewhere will come up with a platform that helps drive incremental sales through some social shopping experience….just a matter of time.

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