TurnTo Widget Socializes Online Shopping
A big part of the online shopping experience is reading product reviews from anonymous customers - but one media company is attempting to make those reviews a little more personal, writes Internet Retailer.
TurnTo Networks has introduced the beta version of a social-shopping network that gives potential customers access to recommendations and feedback from friends rather than strangers.
The network is implemented through a widget on the homepage of an e-commerce site that connects users to an opt-in network of “friends” that can be imported via Yahoo Mail, Outlook, Facebook and other email and social network accounts.
The widget’s text prompts shoppers to see whether they have friends who shop on that site and, if so, to find out what they have bought. (Members can choose to suppress individual products from their purchase lists.)
Shoppers can then click to ask - via email or instant message - for feedback about the product and ultimately find out whether their “friend” is satisfied with his/her purchase.
If the shopper buys a product after landing on the product page directly from a friend’s product list, the e-tailer rewards TurnTo with a percentage of the revenue generated from the sale.
“We want to be the AdSense of social shopping,” Gadi BenMark, TurnTo’s chief revenue officer, is quoted as saying.
TurnTo introduced the service at the DEMOfall 08 conference in San Diego on Monday, and this week it is being commercially launched at Angara, CompSource, The Earthwatch Institute, and Teavana.
Four more e-retailers will be using the widget by the end of the month and more will come in the months ahead, according to the company, which is privately funded but is seeking venture capital, MediaPost writes.