UK Social Commerce Trends ReportKey takeaways from Social Commerce Summit London 2010

REPORT • OCTOBER 6, 2010

Each year, the Social Commerce Summit London brings together innovative brands and thought leaders to share best practices and trends in social media.

At the 2010 event, national treasure Stephen Fry and JibJab CEO Gregg Spiridellis shared their views on the evolution of the internet and social media. The bottom line? People are people — deal with them as people, not as “business decision-makers.” Stephen Fry especially encourages companies to simply “be human” as they deal in social media.

Several UK brands, including Argos, Debenhams, and The Body Shop UK, shared specific strategies they found successful. And Forrester’s Patti Freeman Evans spoke on the future trends that continue to shape social media — and the way we interact beyond the web.

This paper encapsulates the highlights and key learnings from this event.

Table of ContentsThe latest trend in social media? Humanity 4

Failure and learning go hand-in-hand in social media 5

Start the conversation, then take action: Successes from Dell,

Homebase, The Body Shop, and more 7

Argos improve the entire business by listening to customers 9

To be successful, make the most of your unique influencers 11

Forrester share trends that shape e-commerce in Europe 13

Three megatrends that will power the next phase of social media 15

Your next steps 17

Sources and contact information 17

The latest trend in social media? Humanity. Stephen Fry, popular actor, writer, comedian, and

television presenter, is “deeply dippy about all things

digital.” Right out of university, he became fascinated

with computers, feeling if he didn’t have one

immediately, he would be computer illiterate.

And that’s just one of the things he loves about today’s

online experience — you don’t have to know how a

computer works; you just have to understand how to

navigate and be nimble in the space. This is much how

the computer industry has evolved over the years.

Stephen bought the second Apple Macintosh computer

in the UK, and realised how extra-ordinary a computer

could be. He saw how the graphical interface changed

everything. And while it took Bill Gates the best part of

10 years to create the Windows interface for PCs, people

fell in love with Apple. When the Mac came out in 1994,

it was expensive and incompatible with business users;

however, it brought people joy. “It’s something that Steve

Jobs and Apple continue to do in their design — create

things that, while they might not be the best version of

a technology tool, they make their users laugh with joy,”

Stephen says.

As social media — and all things digital, for that matter

— continue to evolve, Stephen encourages all of us

to remember that people are not people who become

“business people.” They are always people. “We are

made as emotional characters,” he said, “and if we have a

device with us at all times, we want a joyful one — even

if it doesn’t have all the functionality of the other ones.

“I suppose the element of social media that bothers me is

that it has to be led with human understanding first and

business understanding second,” he says. “If businesses

lead with their wallets and not their hearts, businesses

will fall by the wayside with social media. I have so many

Twitter followers because I’ve been on TV and I got on

Twitter early. I would never exploit my followers for my

own commercial gain. I would keep them updated on

where I will be, that I have a new book and so on, but I

wouldn’t tweet that ‘I like these biscuits’ and get paid by

a biscuit company for it. I’m trusted to be myself and I

wouldn’t want to break that trust with my followers.

“The huge challenge of the internet,” he continues,

“is the enormous positivity of what comes from the

conversations across the globe, whether it’s Twitter,

Facebook, or using open API, the analysis of that traffic

is a hugely valuable tool of who we are. Most films open

on a Friday and the first weekend gross is incredibly

important to Hollywood in terms of its long term success.

On the Wednesday before a film opens, people can tell

how much money it will make by analysing Twitter noise.

Translate that across the whole commercial sphere and

it’s very amazing what were on

the brink of.”

Stephen contends that businesses can’t “learn” how to

maximise Twitter. “The fact is it’s like saying, ‘How can

I be more popular? Teach me.’ If you want to be liked,

you like other people, you listen, are friendly and kind.

It’s about being as human as you can be and not hiding

behind jargon.

“It doesn’t matter what your job is, you can escape the

tedious treadmill of business talk and think about what is

exciting and occasionally you may need to use a phrase

like user-generated content,” he continues. “Be more

exciting; think of yourself as running EMI studios with

the Beatles coming in. That’s the world we’re living in,

it’s all of us who have voices now and they can be heard.

They can be unbelievably exciting. We’re all part of this

excitement as these technologies begin to converge.

Stephen Fry encourages brands and marketers to “be human.”

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“That’s my message. Be Human.”

Failure and learning go hand-in-hand in social media. Gregg Spiridellis founded JibJab Media in 1999 with his

brother, an independent film maker. At that point, two

trends influenced him. First, video had become easy to

capture and produce — you just needed the talent to do

it well, which his brother had. Also, file servers made it

incredibly easy to distribute and share video. These two

things led Gregg to believe JibJab would be successful —

and it didn’t hurt that people loved to forward videos.

In 1999, they began by creating funny videos that went

viral via email, then evolved over time to create offbeat

Sendables® eCards, personalised Starring You!® videos,

and satirical viral videos. They work with major brands to

bring personalised, shareable fun to get people talking.

Due to the dot-com bust, when all their clients went out

of business, JibJab have worked to reinvent themselves

while staying focused on their core value: making people

laugh. Here are the lessons Gregg learned over the past

11 years with JibJab.

1 Do something really dumb. When JibJab started, they had no idea how to monetise media, but they went with what was happening at the time to be pioneers.

2 Experiment broadly. Experimentation taught them that people love humour,

faces, and music in animation. On 9 July 2004, they finally had an “overnight” success with their U.S. political video, “This Land.” The video got 80,000,000 online views in the United States and gave JibJab huge exposure.

3 Learn from your success. The way their videos were shared showed them that the social distribution was really what set them apart from traditional media — their audience is the network. They kept creating content that was relevant to the audience, but continued to strive to monetise it. In 2007, the online e-cards trend and social media were converging — people were truly starting to live their lives online and this was a huge trend that JibJab saw they could fit into. The influx of social sharing is not just a new market — it’s the opportunity to disrupt a huge industry.

4 Pivot and reinvent yourself. Gregg and JibJab pivoted from political satire videos to e-cards. They saw e-cards could be really great if you could put your own faces on them, so they launched the Starring You offering, which lets people use JibJab templates and create fun videos using their own faces. Experimentation and reinvention helped JibJab create content that’s instantly relevant to people because they put their own faces into it. JibJab creates one template, but it’s relevant to millions of people because they can personalise it, and each video is then viewed five to 15 times, on average. This creates a huge scale for

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Gregg Spiridellis, Founder & CEO of JibJab, suggests brands experiment and learn from their successes.

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JibJab, a model they could build and invest in.

5 Invest and execute. There are now more than 500 Starring You titles on JibJab.com. They monetise this model through individual memberships and creating partnerships with top brands. For example, they worked with OfficeMax in the United States on their popular “Elf Yourself” online interactive promotion. They have extended out to partners such as Disney, including a promotion that lets teens put themselves into popular movies. In the last three years, users have made almost seven million Starring You films, which upload 169 million Starring You heads into system and create 400 million streams for content. There have been 1.7 million credit card swipes from people signing up to JibJab, and now 90% of their business is direct to consumer. It’s incredibly rare for a creative company to have end users as its customers, but JibJab has had great success.

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“You don’t have to be a comedy brand to do this well,” said Gregg. “You just need to tell stories that appeal to an audience, give them the tools to share it, and create more value.”

Start the conversation, then take action: Successes from Dell, Homebase, The Body Shop, and more. Manufacturers often have the hardest time deciding to

implement customer reviews, and this was the case at

Dell. When they first launched reviews in 2006, they

were hesitant; however, they soon learned that reviews

help them increase sales conversion.

Beyond that, though, former Senior Vice President,

Dell Product Group, Alex Gruzen, saw the potential for

reviews to improve Dell products. The inconvenient

truth? Dell products had an overall average 3.7 out of

5-star rating — Alex knew they had to act. He set a goal

to have an average of 4.5 out of 5-star reviews for all

products. The product team now strives for that 4.5 star

mark, based solely on customer reviews — not surveys or

focus groups — and they have created great products in

the wake of this goal.

DIY retailer Homebase realised they needed to get their

in-store shoppers involved in leaving customer reviews.

They created a post-purchase email that asked these

shoppers to review their recent purchases, and today

97 percent of their online reviews come from in-store

customers. This content increases conversion online

and gives their in-store teams some great information to

share with shoppers.

Debenhams are still early in their social experimentation,

and wanted to test how Facebook may work for them.

They launched a Facebook page that focuses on the

Debenhams Beauty Club, then set a goal to gain 10,000

fans. They put the word out on their existing Facebook

page, then let relevant bloggers know that the first

10,000 people to “like” their Facebook page would get

50 Beauty Club points, which can be used for discounts

on purchases. While they thought it would take them

some time to get to 10,000 fans, they got there in three

days — and shortly after, they were up to more than

50,000 fans. To Debenhams, the high number of fans

indicates that people are passionate about their Beauty

Club and their brand overall.

Joanna Robb, Head of Development and CRM for B&Q

Direct, pays special attention to reviews and actually

tracked down a person who wrote a negative review. This

person had bought a product in a B&Q store, and was

pleasantly surprised to hear from the company. It turned

Top international brands share what’s worked – and what hasn’t – in their endeavours with social commerce.

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out that this customer was a blogger, and B&Q’s quick

action resulted in a positive experience for this customer.

B&Q focuses much of its social activities to assist with

customer service needs, and are building up their Twitter

and Facebook communities.

Gino Goossens, Chief E-Commerce & Innovation Officer

from Germany-based Conrad Electronics, shared that

the 90-year-old company gains most of its sales from its

online channel.

“People use our products to build inventions,” Gino says.

“Social media is the best way to share these stories and

show off their innovations and how they built them.”

Conrad has great success getting customers to share

their input, and they work to ensure that the intimacy

between the brand and their customers remains — it’s

important to them that everyone who participates feels

appreciated and wants to continue contributing.

A post-purchase email campaign helped The Body Shop

UK increase their number of reviews 500% almost

overnight, according to Adam Plummer, User Experience

Manager for The Body shop UK.

“The level of engagement has been surprising,” he says.

“People do want to talk with us, and they opt to come

onto the site and add reviews. [Reviews] represent

a hotline to our customers and take us closer to our

customer base than we’ve ever been. Our customers love

writing reviews; the average rating is 4.7 out of 5.”

The Body Shop saw immediate negative reviews

when they launched a new product, so they were able

to address the issue immediately, and their biggest

challenge now involves evangelising the whole concept

of the social web to try to leverage these tools across

the business.

Retailers have a variety of ideas about what really

matters when it comes to measuring the results of social

marketing. Adam from The Body Shop looks at revenue

per visitor, comparing those who interact with user-

generated content, like product reviews, to those

who do not.

“Social is the most cost-effective way to use your best

and worst customers to evolve your brand,”

says B&Q’s Joanna.

According to Craig Barry, Retail Operations Manager for

Multi Channel & Loyalty with Homebase, “It’s not about

ROI yet — it’s about customer service.”

“Customers seek reassurance from customer reviews,

which leads to more conversions and sales,” says Simon

Forster, Director for Debenhams.com.

Peter Fitzgerald, Director Google UK, has seen brands

have great success by leveraging the entire shopping

ecosystem – multiplying the value of all content — by

making it available beyond the organisation’s site. For

example, Google Product Reviews Program is the first

program that lets online brands use their full review

content to directly impact natural search, mobile, and

Google advertising results.

Brands can expose star ratings to searchers, put their

logos next to their reviews, and link directly back to the

product page where a searcher can buy. This lets the

consumer reviews gathered on the site help consumers

who are still just searching for products.

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Argos improve the entire business by listening to customers. Argos are a large general merchant retailer with 750

stores in the UK and Ireland. Known primarily for their

twice-a-year catalogue, they now sell through many

channels, including mobile reserve-and-collect and online

ordering. They attract £1.4 billion in online sales annually

and £1.9 billion in total multi-channel sales.

David Tarbuck heads up multi-channel programmes for

Argos, and he has helped bring customer opinions into

the company to transform the entire organisation. David

and his team added customer reviews to argos.co.uk

at the end of 2009 and launched customer Q&A in

mid-2010, all in an effort to start conversations with

customers, allow them to tell Argos what they think, and

provide additional information that helps shoppers buy.

“This is how we started, with [getting customers to

contribute],” David says, “but we moved on to listen. It

wasn’t easy [to decide to add reviews]; it took us 12-14

months from our decision to sign the contract to get

started. We needed to get all the right evangelists for

word of mouth throughout the entire organisation in front

of right people.

“We had to overcome questions such as, ‘What will

customers say?’, ‘How will we use the information?’,

‘How can we control what is said?,’ and ‘How will we

manage the content?’”

A short time after customer reviews were launched on

the site, Argos saw that most customers were positive;

their average product rating is 4.3 stars out of five. Argos

have gathered 760,000 reviews from customers since

2009, and more than a million shoppers read reviews

on their site each week. Today Argos use reviews across

all marketing channels, including, print, emails, via

their iPhone app, and in social sharing, and they share

customer input across the entire business.

“The view that all areas of business will improve by

engaging came true,” David explains. “The value of

negative can outweigh the value of positive. We can now

articulate across the business that if people don’t like

something, let’s change it. If we listen, we’ll learn about

product, service and brand. What’s important is as a

company how we listen and what we do.”

Argos use customer conversations in many ways, including:

To contact customers. “Over 1000 customers a week are

contacted as a result of customer- generated content,”

David says. “We have automated reports that send

moderated content directly to our contact centre agents

who respond to concerns or issues. Customer feedback

from these conversations is fantastic – often customers

are surprised that we are listening.”

To improve products and the information about them. “We care about getting product descriptions as accurate

as possible,” David explains. “This is linked to customer

satisfaction. We have automated reports that email

reviews containing product detail errors to product

information teams. All of these are investigated and,

when required, improvements are made to fix data

David Tarbuck of Argos Ltd. explains how customer-created content has fundamentally changed the way the company does business.

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issues. Improved product data is distributed across the

business to all customer touchpoints.”

To give feedback to manufacturers. “This has benefited

our trading teams; when we meet suppliers they

understand what we’re doing and value the information,”

David says. “Buyers take packs containing product

ratings with them when meeting suppliers to help

negotiations, put information on customer reviews

down with margins, and talk about what needs to

change to improve ratings. This leads to improved

supplier relationships, which is enhanced further as we

collaborate to improve ratings.”

To change products. “Before [reviews], we wouldn’t

know if we were stocking products that customers

don’t like,” David says. “Now we look at what’s sold

objectively and change products based on comments.

Customer comments lead to a stronger product. If we

didn’t have this content, it wouldn’t have happened; it’s

very unlikely that word would have gottten back to us.

Today our quality control (QC) team have direct access

to review information, helping them target products and

suppliers. We can collaborate with suppliers. If the QC

team sees a drop in quality and ratings, we adapt

buying patterns.

“For example,” he continues, “we had put a huge order

in for an item that received an overall negative review.

We went to the manufacturer and this led to a re-design

and testing of the product. After reworking the product,

it got a 5-star review. We are using this content now

in our contact centre, online, and with merchants and

manufacturers. We are pushing this now to the back

end and looking at how we use it in store marketing

and across other channels. Customers said they wanted

reviews on our mobile application, so we added them.

We use customer conversations as integral parts of the

changes we make across the business.”

To assist with the product selection process. “Trading

teams use what customers have said about products to

assist them when choosing which products to re-include

in the Argos catalogue,” David explains. “Obviously,

we aim to remove lower rated items. The result is that

customers get better products to choose from and

therefore have a better Argos experience.”

Argos’ contact centres are geared up to listen to the

customer, and they use word clouds for products to

understand customer sentiment and how to fix problems

with products. Word clouds for customer questions

show Argos the specific content they need to add to help

products sell.

Argos’ participation to transformation in summary

• We know our customers participate in social commerce

• We know our customers like talking to us

• We know they like to hear from us

• We know they want to share knowledge with other customers

• We know when we listen and act, we improve our products, our service, and our brand

• Customer-generated content is expected and we are expected to act on it

• We are still learning, getting better and developing

• Customer conversations are transforming our business

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Argos use word clouds to easily see overall sentiments about products.

To be successful, make the most of your unique influencers. Social media levels the playing field, making consumer

contributions as loud as – or sometimes louder than – the

corporate marketing message. Dmitri Siegel, Executive

Director of Marketing for Urban Outfitters, shares

how this unique brand – with independent, creative

consumers – uses social media to take core business

values and blow them out exponentially.

According to Siegel, “We don’t have a logo. We don’t

have a style guide. We have a spirit.” Their social

strategies reflect this spirit and get their customers

involved. Here are some guidelines Dmitri suggests.

There are some people you want to be friends with, and some you don’t, just like in any social situation. Urban

Outfitters started out by featuring some of its customers

on its blog – people they or their customers “want to be

friends with.” They interview their customers to draw in

others who share the same lifestyle/style.

But don’t be a snob – don’t ignore people. To get all

types of consumers involved – not just the fashionistas

or style mavens who regularly review products — Urban

Outfitters ran a contest where consumers submitted

images of love, so anyone could submit something

creative. The company also embraces different uses of its

products – photo reviews show the way people actually

wear Urban Outfitters clothes, even paired with clothing

and accessories that do not come from Urban Outfitters.

Their products don’t really come to life until people show

exactly how they actually wear them in the real world.

Be a good listener. This is basic. Urban Outfitters get

about 1,500 reviews per week; they read them and dig

into them. You also see what it’s like to be your own

customer. For example, one woman said that a shirt she

purchased was too big, but she cut it and wore it off the

shoulder, and submitted a photo of her new creation. This

gives Urban Outfitters a relevant data point about how a

product is actually used.

Ask good questions. If you put a good question out,

you’ll be amazed at what you get. For example, last year

Urban Outfitters did a “lo-fi, high style” sweepstakes/

contest, where customers shared the cool things they

created for cheap. When Urban Outfitters started getting

photographs from customers, they were beautiful

and creative. Today, when Urban Outfitters mash up

their own professional photos with those submitted

by customers, even the marketing team can’t tell the

difference – which is exactly as it should be. Urban

Outfitters’ customers’ creativity inspires Dmitri and the

design team.

Make some introductions. Urban Outfitters added

community Q&A to their site, which created a good

format for introducing customers to one another; they

now get about 400 questions each week.

Dmitri Siegel, Executive Director of Marketing at Urban Outfitters, outlines his philosophy on engaging with customers who are non-joiners by nature.

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Other customers as well as Urban Outfitters designers

respond. The more people you can get involved in the

conversation, the better the experience.

Stop talking about yourself so much. Being social allows

you to let your customer be the voice for awhile; be

quiet, ask questions, and see what they have to share.

You need a good party spot. It must be free to participate.

For example, Urban Outfitters often invite unsigned

bands to perform in its Backlot, their back parking lot

behind a flagship store, and they stage similar events

around the country. They’ve been doing these events for

years, so now tens of thousands of people watch them

through live online broadcasting. During and after the

events, they feature cool people they met in their

blog and on Twitter.

Music can really set the mood. Urban Outfitters have

Music Mondays on Twitter, giving away hundreds of

thousands of songs each month; it’s a top topic on

Twitter each week. They usually feature unsigned bands,

and play these songs in their stores, too, creating a sense

of discovery in the store. Urban Outfitters believe that if

someone recommends good music to you, their level of

credibility goes up.

Be spontaneous. Urban Outfitters share live links to their

in-store events, so customers can watch even if they’re

across the country.

Don’t take yourself too seriously. Anybody can be cool,

but awesome takes practice. Social media is a chatty

medium; be authentic to your voice.

Be vulnerable – share information to get information. When Urban Outfitters encouraged customers to send

photos of their mothers as part of a Mother’s Day

contest, their team members sent in their own photos,

too.

Keep in touch. These relationships have real value –

keep them going. Keep up with the people you have

interacted with. It’s less about numbers; more about

one-to-one connections. Social media can’t be measured

solely by the number of people who potentially see the

information, like traditional advertising is measured. The

deep connections with individuals build over time and

create an annuity that continues to grow.

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Forrester share trends that shape e-commerce in Europe. Patti Freeman Evans, VP and research director at

Forrester Research, shares the top trends for

European e-commerce.

“In the past, if you were [shopping] alone, you had very

few options,” she says. “Now you can be alone with

many options anywhere.Connected through your mobile

phone, you become a nexus for communication. You are

able to engage with someone who has used the product

you are considering. It’s a different world full

of complexities.”

Patti says that, going forward, it’s important for brands

to focus on the four C’s:

1 Clarity: Who are you? Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google, said that “Brands are the solution… brands are how you sort out the cesspool of the internet.” In a sea of options, clarity

is about how quickly and clearly you can send a brand message. Apple does a good job of this; you see an Apple product and you know what you’re looking at. The stores only have around 20 products and the product is simple. That is clarity. That is what Apple have always been about.

2 Competition: It’s not what you once thought it was. Today, competition includes different sales channels, new online models, and new options for not just products, but how shoppers find and buy them. Brands need to realise that customers could be coming from anywhere around the world.

3 Customers: What are they looking for? The customer is more elusive and intimate with you at the same time. We don’t have people in mass audiences like before as it was with traditional media. In new media, people are fragmented, so communicating with them is more personal and intimate. We can have a personal conversation but it’s fragmented and happening in more places. Brands must strive to be relevant to each customer segment — and each customer — to where they are and what they are saying at the moment.

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Patti Freeman Evans of Forrester Research explains that European shopping behaviours are increasingly complex.

4 Connection: We have easier access to consumers; we know them in a way we haven’t before. There are now so many ways people buy and shop — up to half of buyers research online, then buy offline. And channels don’t rule each other out —

the invention of TV didn’t kill radio — but the channels continue to evolve. Today, mobile devices are used to connect, even settle arguments at dinner parties. Consumers are now used to instant access to information.

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Forrester Research indicates customer ratings and reviews are the clear winners among social commerce tools and tactics.

Three megatrends powering the next phase of social media. Brant Barton, Chief Innovation Officer and co-founder

of Bazaarvoice, points out three megatrends that power

long-term innovation for Bazaarvoice and, he believes,

social media in general: new retail, co-creation, and

mobile empowerment.

New retail: social media changes the way we shop. Retailers should now think of shoppers in relationship

to their social graph. For example, Amazon recently

deployed active social network integration with

Facebook. Shoppers can now access their friends’ tastes,

which can help them discover new products.

Groupon and other group buying sites are huge trends in

the United States. In short, Groupon emails and tweets

limited-time, deep discounts each day, but a certain

number of people must respond to make the deal a

reality, so users share the coupons to get the discount,

which is usually 50 to 90 percent off a product

or service.

There are many examples of this model, with more

entering the market each week. Brands should take care

to keep the new customers they attract by providing a

great customer experience and gathering their contact

information to keep conversations going.

ShoeDazzle gives its members, who pay a monthly

fee, personalised stylist recommendations, advice from

celebrities, and one pair of shoes or an accessory each

month. Items are carefully curated and selected to appeal

to members. Bag Borrow or Steal also uses a subscription

model to allow members to borrow luxury accessories,

giving consumers less expensive access to

trendy accessories.

Brant challenges retailers to think about new models,

new ways to present products, and to take part in

existing models that make sense.

Co-creation makes consumers part of the brand. Burberry introduced “Art of the Trench” in 2009, where

the brand and consumers submitted photos of the iconic

coat. Burberry let the consumer become the face of the

brand, resulting in a highly viral, long-living campaign.

Threadless.com takes this a step further, allowing

consumers to post their own t-shirt designs. The

community votes on the best ones, and those designs are

created and offered for sale to the same community.

Nike iD lets consumers create their own unique,

customised shoes, creating a hugely profitable business.

All these examples are benefiting from the “IKEA

effect.” When consumers invest their energy and time

into assembling a product, such as they do with IKEA

furniture that must be assembled, they feel a greater

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Bazaarvoice co-founder and Chief Innovation Officer, Brant Barton, highlights the megatrends shaping the landscape of e-commerce and the future of innovations in social media.

sense of ownership. Brands should consider how to

get consumers intimately involved in helping to create

the company and extend the brand.

Mobile empowerment lets brands attract buyers exactly where they are. The iPhone has been a revolutionary

device. Mobile has transformed consumer behaviour;

Google recently shared that 10 percent of its search

volume was from mobile – and it’s still rapidly growing.

There has been a move to location-based and mobile

services. For example, Foursquare lets users “check in” to

physical locations via their social networks, and brands

have taken advantage of this. To introduce its new

trainers, Jimmy Choo launched a “treasure hunt” around

London via Facebook, Four-square, and Twitter. Brands

should think about where many of their social consumers

are congregating — how can you leverage this data?

The mobile device also means that brands should think

more like video game producers in creating the consumer

experience. It needs to be interesting, there need to

be twists. The smartphone is like a controller for your

videogame, enabling you to interact with this world

like never before. For example, Shopkick is a mobile

commerce start-up that has partnered with a number of

large US retailers and created a game. With the Shopkick

app, you go into a store and earn points by entering. As

you interact with products, you earn more points, which

can eventually be redeemed as discounts. Shopping tools

like this are quickly evolving and becoming more like

playing video games.

These applications are in their infancy, but they are

bridging the gap between the offline and online worlds.

This convergence of channels is a sign of where things

are going.

Other big truths for the future:

Social isn’t a just feature. For a couple of years, social

was seen as an add-on. But if you look at today’s

examples, social is an intrinsic part of these businesses

and even their fundamental function. Think about how

the social experience is shaping consumer experiences,

expectations and behaviour.

The web is dead. This is a very current debate. The web

isn’t dead, but it is increasingly fragmented. The linear

experience of searching, landing on the homepage,

navigating a site, then buying a product is dead. New

apps create rich experiences and shape consumer

expectations.

Shoppers are people, too. These new models like

Groupon play on the fact that consumers are attracted to

exclusivity and fear rarity. There are triggers that brands

can employ, but remember shoppers are still people — we

respond to basic things.

Customers are your brand. Urban Outfitters are a perfect

example of this. If you don’t like how a consumer is using

or wearing your product, that’s too bad — your customer

is fundamentally your brand. The co-creation examples

are extreme versions of this. Getting consumers involved

in how you run your business gets them involved at a

level that loyalty schemes and marketing plans can never

achieve.

The fourth dimension of mobile. Simply optimising your

site for mobile is not enough. Mobile is a whole new

layer of services and control; it will change customer

expectations of the web.

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REPORT: UK Social Commerce Trends

Your next steps.These insights should answer some questions, but raise even more. Bazaarvoice is the world leader in social commerce, serving top brands across a huge variety of industries. Visit us at bazaarvoice.co.uk and schedule a demonstration that will help you understand how to connect to consumers, build engagement, and drive measurable return on investment.

Sources and contact informationPresentations excerpted in this paper came

from the following sessions at the Social Commerce

Summit London 2010, held 6 October 2010.

For more information on this and future

events, visit socialcommercesummit.co.uk

and socialcommercesummit.com.

What’s Next: The Innovations Inspiring Our Vision

Brant Barton, Co-founder and Chief Innovation Officer, Bazaarvoice

Email: brant.barton@bazaarvoice.com

What’s Next: Trends and Leaders Shaping

Europe’s Future in E-Commerce

Patti Freeman Evans, VP, Research Director, Forrester Research Site:

www.forrester.com/rb/analyst/patti_freeman_evans

Stephen Fry on Stephen Fry:

Being Liked One Tweet at a Time

Stephen Fry, Actor, Writer, Journalist, Comedian, Television Presenter, and Film Director

Twitter: @stephenfry

Site: www.stephenfry.com

How Customers Create the Urban Outfitters Brand

Dmitri Siegel, Executive Director of Marketing, Urban Outfitters Twitter: @dddmitri

Site: www.dmitrisiegel.com

Go Elf Yourself:

How a Stupid Little Viral Video Started a Revolution

Gregg Spiridellis, Founder & CEO, JibJab Twitter: @jibjab_CEO

Site: www.jibjab.com

The Argos Story: From Participation to Transformation

David Tarbuck, Multi-Channel Programme and Operations Manager, Argos Ltd. Twitter: @David_Tarbuck

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REPORT: UK Social Commerce Trends

This document is provided “as-is”. Information and views expressed in this

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references, may change without notice. Some examples depicted herein

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© 2011 Bazaarvoice, Inc. All rights reserved. Bazaarvoice and any

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Bazaarvoice, Inc. All other company or product names may be trademarks

of the respective companies with which they are associated.

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