Social Navigation...

Posted by Jordan on 16 November 2007 | 0 Comments

Another blog about Web 2.0? No actually, this is about how consumers buy online. According to a survey recently run in the US with 1200 online shopper respondents, 'social navigation' is a phrase coined to describe the ability to narrow product selections based on reviews from like-minded people with similar interests.

Apparently two thirds of online shoppers actively use social networking as a decision maker between products. This has implications for shop assistants in bricks and mortar, for consideration of drop out rate in shopping basket and ecommerce sites (when was the last time you heard someone at a shopping till say to the assistant and everyone else in the queue - "hang on a mo', I'm just popping out to check someone's review of this food mixer") and clearly for site architects in considering review content.

The car industry found the shift in consumer footfall from uninformed to spec. ready tough to handle and have had to consider sales retraining over the last 5 years. It looks like the '4 out of 5 people that research cars online before buying' metric is one that all retailers of items with £10+ticket value might have to consider.

And why not? It's always been that way with buying ad agencies.