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