Amazon Takes Social Shopping to a New Level

If you use Amazon’s “Price Check” mobile app on Saturday Dec. 10, 2011 to compare the price of an item in a brick-and-mortar store with what you can get it for at Amazon’s website, Amazon will give you a five percent break, up to $5,  if you buy that item from Amazon.com. 

What is interesting is that this is a new application of social shopping, where users contribute feedback, but where the social exchange is that users compare prices, let Amazon know, and then get value the form of discounts. In many other forms of social shopping, people post public reviews and information. 

In this case, Amazon essentially is having shoppers act as "mystery shoppers" to check out and report retail pricing at competitive outlets. Retailers do this all the time.


What is different here is the social angle, the value exchange and yet another use of mobile apps in mobile commerce.


Amazon is giving comparison shoppers a quick-and-easy way to earn up to $15 in discounts, but the promotion is making brick and mortar retailers are unhappy, of course.



The Price Check app is free and works on the iPhone and Android smartphones. To use it, you scan a product's bar code, take its picture or say or type its name. The app then gives you the Amazon price.



If you decide you'd rather buy the product from Amazon, you can put it in Amazon's online shopping cart where you'll get a discount if you complete the purchase within 24 hours.

The discount can be used on three items for a maximum of $5 off each. The deal good on electronics, toys, sports, music and DVDs sold directly by Amazon, not its third party suppliers. .

A product you're price checking also has to be an exact match to what Amazon is selling. Some might note that the promotion, though possibly enabling a shift of some sales to Amazon.com, has other value. It will feed Amazon current pricing on a wide range of products being offered by brick-and-mortar retailers all over the United States.



In fact, Amazon says on its website that the discount is “an introduction to sharing in-store advertised prices with us.”



In some cases, Amazon also will get location information as well. Qualifying products for the promotional period will have a yellow “Get deal” button next to the Amazon offer price. Amazon price check promo Dec. 10, 2011



Though it is understandable that brick and mortar retailers worry about sales volume shifting on one shopping day, they also are worried that Amazon will have a highly-efficient “mystery shopper” campaign running on Dec. 10, 2011 that no brick and mortar retailer can afford to support.



Also, some will argue, shoppers already are routinely comparing prices using their smart phones while shopping. This is just a fact of life these days, and illustrates one more way mobile commerce is being a material factor in the shopping process.

Consumers want 'free stuff' from social, marketers think they 'want to be heard' | Econsultancy

A study from the Chief Marketing Officer Council and Lithium reveals a disconnect between what senior marketers think consumers want from social media, and what people actually want.

According to the 1,300-plus consumers surveyed online globally, there was an expectation that a brand follow, like, post or preference in a social media environment would enable a person to be eligible for exclusive offers (67 percent), have the opportunity to interact with other customers who share the same experiences (60 percent) and gain access to games or contests (65 percent).


In other words, consumers view a social media follow, like, +1 or other "vote" as part of a transaction. Users assent to public support for a brand, in return for value of some sort. 

When the same question was asked to over 120 CMOs, the results were very different. The CMOs saw social engagement is more of a by-product of quality content. They tended not to believe they needed to provide incentives to foster and maintain loyalty among their followers. 


According those surveyed, customers interact with brands because they; want to be heard (41 percent) or are looking for news or information about products (40 percent) Consumers want 'free stuff' from social


It appears consumers view social engagement in much the same way they see TV commercials, namely that it is an exchange of value. In exchange for ad exposure, viewers get free, no incremental cost or subsidized access to content.


Apparently, much the same sort of thinking is at work with social engagement mechanisms. Amazon recently took advantage of that sort of thinking, offering shoppers discounts of up to $5 for checking prices of products in retail outlets, and where Amazon sells the identical item, buying from Amazon, instead. Amazon "Price Check" promotion


That's a value exchange. The user checks a price, lets Amazon know, and then gets something in return if that item is purchased on Amazon. 

Mobile Commerce Provides Lots of Value, and Not Just Transaction Fees

You might think that mobile payments are significant because they represent a potential shift of transaction fee streams from one set of providers to another.


That's true.  AITE Group, for example, in January 2010, it estimated that mobile payments would reach $214 billion in 2015, up from $16 billion in 2010, a 68 percent compound annual growth rate (CAGR) between 2010 and 2015. U.S. Mobile Payments


To the extent that all those payments will involve a transaction fee earned by some entity, you see the upside. But the value doesn't stop there. 

To give you some idea of what that can mean, eBay Chief Executive John Donahoe said otal payment volume transmitted by mobile devices through PayPal's system will be more than $3.5 billion in 2011. That helps PayPal.

But there are other ways value can be created. EBay, which owns PayPal, also uses smart phone apps like Red Laser, which lets shoppers scan bar codes to check prices online and at other retailers nearby. You might wonder what value that provides. For one thing, it allows eBay to do “comparison pricing” that retailers routinely conduct, but more efficiently, since eBay can rely on its users to do the work. PayPal mobile payments volume

Amazon.com is doing similar things, with a twist. On Dec. 10, 2011, Amazon will offer comparison shoppers a five percent discount, up to $5, on any item whose price is checked, in a retail store, using the Amazon “Price Check” app, and which is purchased on Amazon within 24 hours of the price check.

Though you might say this is a test of how much sales volume potentially can be shifted by offering such discounts, it also is a way for Amazon to gather quite a lot of infomation on retail pricing at brick and mortar locations selling the same merchandise that Amazon is selling.

More Social Shopping by Men, than Women?

Though some studies suggest women use social networks more than men when shopping, a study by Performics suggests the opposite, namely that men are more likely than women to conduct five of six social shopping activities.

Contradicting commonly held beliefs about gender and social behaviors, the study showed men more frequently research product information, read reviews, compare products, find product availability and get store information via social networks, shopping and deal sites.

But women tend to search for deals, coupons and specials on similar sites more frequently than men. Contradictory data on use of social shopping

Aside from Facebook, men frequent social networks (at least once a month) substantially more than women.

Other studies have suggested that women use social media more when shopping. Gender differences in social shopping. One study suggests that men and women use social media differently. A study by Empathica, for example, found more men citing looking for information as a primary goal (36 percent) than women (28 percent) when interacting with a retail brand through social channels. 


But the gender split among those looking to stretch their budgets was far greater: 47 percent of women say searching for coupons and promotions is their primary use, compared with 33 percent of men.

Google Offers Partners With 14 Deal Providers

Google has just announced a set of new partnerships with over a dozen niche daily deal providers, which will now be integrated into the Google Offers service, both on the Web and in the Google Shopper mobile applications for iOS and Android.

The new Google Offers partners include Dealfind, DoodleDeals, Gilt City, GolfNow, HomeRun, JuiceInTheCity, kgbdeals, Mamapedia, PlumDistrict, PopSugar Shop, ReachDeals, Active.com Schwaggle, TIPPR, and zozi.


Initially, these deals will be only available to those in the San Francisco Bay area, but this feature will soon arrive to other areas, says Google. Google Offers Partners With 14 Deal Providers 

Some are skeptical about the long-term staying power of "daily deals" services. Certainly not all of the current providers will survive. But if you believe mobile wallet services will succeed, it will be largely on the strength of deals, offers and other rewards consumers receive, as well as the loyalty, retention and customer acquisition retailers benefit from.