09/20/2010 05:49:46 PM 
(2) 
(2) Most online shopping experiences are bland and highly predictable, but I think all this might be about to change and the third revolution might be upon us.
The first was just getting online, the second was all about improving and enhancing the merchandising and the third is going to be all together different.
Finally, retailers might be starting to realize that the huge advantage of having an online presence is flexibility on a scale that's unimaginable within the context of a physical space.
Add to that, the massive opportunities that exist to integrate content and social networking tools and online retail could be looking very different within a year.
One cannot deny that the influence of Gilt and Groupon has been massive and shown these retailers how they need to be much more creative with pricing and concept.
A good example of this in action is J.Crew's Factory store; an online store that's only open at the weekend and sells discounted items.
This has to be one of the first manifestations of the third revolution in online retail.
Posted by Ed Cotton
J Crew
They are going the route of places like Rue La La, where the open their boutique at certain times and offer great deals. It's a good idea, and will definitely have a following. Truth be told, retailers do need to be creative to stand out.
Posted by Nick Stamoulis on 09/21/2010 01:07 PM
They are going the route of places like Rue La La, where the open their boutique at certain times and offer great deals. It's a good idea, and will definitely have a following. Truth be told, retailers do need to be creative to stand out.
Posted by Nick Stamoulis on 09/21/2010 01:07 PM
It appears you don't have Flash installed.
Another component driving retail sales is social shopping that is about turning purchases into conversations. Social networks are excited about conversations, not purchases. Similarly, questions around purchases arouse a lot of interest. The second component is getting users to share their shopping experiences with friends on Facebook, Twitter, Email etc. Allowing users to share their purchases and ask questions about other users purchases helps turn purchases into conversations. Interactions on Facebook have to be drastically different compared to traditional push selling techniques. Push selling techniques will simply not work in social media. However, if done right, social commerce can enable fantastic ROI. Social recommendation services such as ShopSocially enable users to rapidly spread the word about their purchases. This creates lots of additional traffic to retailer sites. This trend should not be ignored.