Hi there

I am a student studying ecommerce. I am interested in social shopping and want to find out if ecommerce site owners and seo's have ever added products to a social shopping site and recieved new visitors and sales as a result.

The sites seem to be free to use and a good way to build links and traffic in theory.

Here is a representative list of the genre:

1. Kaboodle – http://www.kaboodle.com a great site, arguably market leader geared towards female consumers. Now owned by Hearst Digital Media.
2. ThisNext - http://www.thisnext.com another strong site with an emphasis on female consumers, this site feels like a great window shopping experience with expert Maverns on tap
3. Tribesmart – http://www.tribesmart.com this site is making use of twitter and facebook connect. There are some great tools such as the personal list builder and community messaging features based on the ‘Tribes’ idea. Like Veedow, Wists and Crowdstorm it could appeal to both sexes and this is potentially where the gap in the market is as Kaboodle, OSOYOU and ThisNext seem to have marked out a claim on the younger female market.
4. Veedow - http://www.veedow.com/hello a slightly confusing site, a neat idea, still yet to realize it’s full potential in my view
5. Stylehive - http://www.stylehive.com feeling less like a pure play social shopping site these days, it has a strong emphasis on wannabe celebrity fashion/lifestyle writers who you follow – it is not as vibrant as twitter although you can see where they are going with it
6. Jungle Raft - http://jungleraft.com/ a new entrant, included as it is a new concept with a clear proposition in terms of pulling the best deals from Amazon
7. Stylefeeder - http://www.stylefeeder.com offers to help users discover products based on their unique tastes. The looks a little off the pace and has some annoying and tacky pop up ads. All a bit old skool.
8. Crowdstorm – http://www.crowdstorm.com the site is a Digg type site for products, it is based on buzz and an expert opinion network– although it does seem to have gone quiet in the last 12 months
9. Shopstyle - http://www.shopstyle.co.uk feels like an ecommerce site with price discounts on display. Lacks obvious reviews or community features although the stylebooks feature is really nice enabling people to put looks together and share these – the ‘sale alert’ feature could be useful though and the site has hooked up with Elle magazine in the past.
10. Wists - http://www.wists.com a trending site about what is new and what people plan on buying

Yes, those sites are great,i have used several site to promotion my site,and it takes traffic and links to me.
I think it is useful.

Thanks for the feedback - I am writing a paper on social shopping, it's a new one on me so its good to hear the concept can work.

Great info. Those ecommerce shopping sites are convenient for British people. American ecommerce shopping sites are very different from that.

Many of them are focusing on deals rather than focusing on items & ultimate user reviews.

Yes that is true - I guess it kind of fits in some ways if you think about new year sales as set piece events which are social.

I was looking at a site in New Zealand which is all about 3 products at a time - one day deals, while stock lasts etc and creating a buzz amongst certain types of customers like snowboarders or skiers.

I think social shopping sites need to create these kind of set piece events to bring people to sites at specific times with specific shared product interests - otherwise the sites are mainly about product reviews - fine, although where is the social element?

You should visit site like http://snowboard.meetup.com/ and other relevant social sites to find people with interest in snowboarders/skiers.

It's a good point - I have looked at social shopping sites like kaboodle, tribesmart, naturalbornshoppers and I kind of see what they want to do.

They all seem to have fairly general categories - I guess to appeal to as many people as possible.

If it were me I'd do as Bob suggests which is to strongly align the site to interest groups - gamers, climbers, snowboarders etc and get these people using the sites, adding products, giving reviews and recommendations to get some momentum.

Although I guess these niche groups have fairly focused community site where they swap product tips amongst other things.

Yes, great list of sites to get target traffic. I am also using some of them.

Hi - which ones do you use?