Social shopping

The core idea of social shopping is that we often buy things based on our friends recommendations. The recommendation can be explicit or implicit. In an explicit recommendation, a friend proactively recommends a product to another friend. In an implicit recommendation, a friend broadcasts his or her recent purchases which may trigger a purchase interest to some of his/her friends. Booz & Co released a study estimating that the dollar value of goods sold through social media will reach $30Bil worldwide ($14Bil in the US) by 2015 up from $5Bil worldwide ($1Bil in the US) in 2011. Business Insider published a report estimating that the flash sales segment (e.g. Gilt, Fab, One Kings Lane, ideeli, Totsy, etc.) of social commerce will reach $6Bil by 2015 up from an estimated $1.5Bil in 2011. However, so far the notion of right way to implement a social shopping infrastructure has not moved far beyond posting and broadcasting one's purchases in Facebook.