Internet Retailer Conference 2008: social shopping and networking trends

- The internet has become the mainstream of the US retail industry with the most innovative and fastest growing merchants putting the web at the core of their growth strategy.

These basic trends were in the centre of attention at the 4th Annual Internet Retailer 2008 Conference & Exhibition, the world's largest e-retailing event that was held June 9-12 in Chicago. Last year the event drew 4,100 attendees while this year it has seen over 5,000 registrants, with 140 speakers in 77 conference sessions featuring 326 e-Commerce solution vendors in the exhibit hall.

All in all, the biggest buzz has been made around social networking and the way it will be exploited by the new forward-looking companies that aim at transforming the whole e-Commerce environment and our conventional shopping behavior. A lot of potential is seen in the way social networking will be blended with e-Commerce and make users engaged in this process. This is where basically e-Commerce is heading.

The two companies that particularly illustrated this trend during the event are:

- Pikaba combines social shopping, online merchant community and group buy network. The site allows you to register either as a user or vendor, after that you can post you 'wish to buy' or 'wish to sell' request or list your products with detailed description, pictures and preferred price and let the community make recommendations and set up deals. Basically you can request just about anything in 30 categories of products and services.

- ShopTogether offers the technology to connect online shoppers to friends, family and call center. It makes you able to invite your friends and family to a shared online shopping session. The call center staff will be able to synchronize with customers to efficiently answer their questions and provide recommendations.

These companies seem to have great potential so let's see how they will grow and use is to the full changing our social shopping experience.