FreshNetworks Blog

Today sees the US-based launch of Mashalot –  a site that has been termed as the “the first online marketplace embedded in social media”.

Launched in beta today in Minneapolis St Paul, the plan is to launch Mashalot nationally in early March 2012 at the South by Southwest festival in Austin, Texas.

Fully integrated with Facebook, Mashalot helps businesses grow their fan base while allowing consumers to leverage their own social networks (Facebook in essence) to save money on products and services.

Aimed at businesses who want to cut their spend on advertising, or small businesses with limited advertising spend but a real need to drive word of mouth to build their customer base, Mashalot works by encouraging consumers (or “Mashers” as they are known) to use their social media influence to gain special pricing from participating Mashalot businesses.  ”Mega-Mashers” are those who gain followers and can greatly influence pricing and promotions within the Mashalot marketplace.

A transaction in the marketplace is called a “Mash”. Mashes can be created by a business transaction that drives specific promotions, or with a consumer-driven price request from an individual or group of Mashers. Mashers may also request a competitive “Mash Your Price” from non-participating businesses; the business will then be contacted by Mashalot who will try to negotiate the transaction.

The Mashalot platform also allows businesses to advertise and each  ad is available for five days. All promotions are pre-approved to meet Mashalot advertising guidelines. Businesses are charged no upfront fee to participate in Mashalot and revenue for the company is 100% commission-based.

Several Minneapolis-St Paul have already signed up to Mashalot, including restaurants, hotels and a local car dealership.

Having had a quick look around the site, it definitely still feels as though Mashalot is still in beta stage, as it’s quite sparse in terms of content and users. As a social commerce platform that claims to be fully integrated with Facebook’s social graph, while also using the group buying and influencers concept of other social media, it will be interesting to see if Mashalot can take off when rolled out nationally and then internationally.

Either way, Mashalot may be of interest, as a concept if nothing else,  for retailers who are trying to use multichannel effectively.

Image courtesy of shutterstock

A new report from Juniper Research has found that an increase in social gaming will push the global market for virtual goods bought from mobile social media services from $3 billion this year to $4.6 billion by 2016.

While this increase is largely attributed to a sharp rise in smartphone adoption, it’s interesting to note is that  sales of virtual goods via mobile platforms are really  flourishing in Japan and China.

This is not really that surprising though, given that  Chinese social gaming companies like  Happy Elements has the ability to raise millions of dollars in funding to not only expand their reach in Asia, but also bring their social games to western markets.

Social gaming can benefit brands in a number of ways and increasing tablet usage is expected to provide further growth in the social gaming market, particularly in the west,  as tablets offer a significantly better user experience for social gaming than smartphones.

However, any brand looking to invest in social virtual goods should be aware of app store payments in the likes of Apple App Store,  Android Market and BlackBerry App World. Any company wishing to sell virtual goods from within their own app risk losing a whopping 30% of the payment value to the app store.

So while virtual goods provide a way of monetising mobile social media and social gaming, brands need to find a way to avoid app stores taking a slice of their revenue.

Other key findings from Juniper’s report include:

• The spend on advertising targeted at tablets is expected to account for almost half of total mobile social media advertising spend by 2016.
• The Far East & China will continue to account for the biggest share of mobile social media revenues, followed by North America.

Image courtesy of Zen

According to The Grocer magazine, online supermarket delivery service Ocado has just reported that its Ocado ‘On The Go’  mobile app has become a major revenue stream, with sales up 600% to £66 million.

With 10,000 users registering every month and 4,000 checkouts made each day, mobile transactions via Ocado ‘On The Go’  now account for 12% of Ocado purchases.

The app is available across 20 different platforms, including on the iphone and for Android users, and it includes user-friendly options like enabling shoppers to search for products by speaking into their phones or scanning bar codes, as well as helping customers to sync  delivery slots with their mobile calendar.

A new “over the counter” service also means that an Ocado ‘On the Go’  mobile app user can specify how they would like  fresh meat and fish to be prepared, helping to bring the offline experience online.

While the stats speak for themselves, having used the app a few times myself I feel what is lacking is a better way of sorting results – it’s quite difficult to sort results by “best value” but given that the app is meant for users “On The Go” I’m not sure this is a top priority anyway.

What would be useful though is integrating social media into the app,  particularly feeding in customer recommendations and reviews to the results that are fed back from a search. Yes, the app selects products it thinks I would like which are dependant on my purchasing habits, but what it doesn’t do is show products that are recommended by consumers. Given the much quoted Nielsen statistic that 70% of online consumers trust opinions posted online by other consumers, incorporating reviews and recommendations would help to increase sales through Ocado ‘On the Go’ further, particularly since Ocado has launched its own-brand products to rival the Waitrose own branded products they stock.

Mobile phone provider 3 has just launched the “3 Live Shop” in Sweden to blend the convenience of shopping online with the knowledge and personal experience gained through an in-store visit.

It’s the next evolution of the sales “live chat” that can often be found in online retail spaces, taking the most up-to-date information from a web store, giving it a human face, and displaying it in an easy to understand manner for the customer.

3 has put a lot of thought into the experience for staff and has tried to make it as natural as possible to drag, scale and adjust the auto-populated content that appears.

From a customer perspective, the user can have multiple options on screen so you can clearly see the difference between products and services. You log on, choose your input method (webcam, microphone or text) and have a real customer service representative respond to your needs there and then. The staff are competent, well trained and the introduction is carefully scripted to help ensure that the customer heads down the correct path as quickly as possible.

This culminates in the customers being more informed, with a better, faster service, so sales won’t be lost because the staff weren’t up-to date on the latest phones, plans and options, couldn’t cross sell, or it took too much time and effort for customers to head to the store.

The video below explains in more detail and gives a run through of the process behind getting the 3 Live Shop working:

3 from B-Reel & B-Reel Films on Vimeo.

F-commerce (commerce through Facebook)  is not just a buzzword; stores are opening up daily and Payvment, a third-party Facebook comments platform, boasts in excess of 60,000 stores using its features.

Starbucks is using Facebook for its loyalty card scheme, Coca-Cola uses it to sell branded merchandise and GameStop, one of the biggest video game retailers in the world, has just opened a full-range shop on Facebook called The GameStop Shop.

Despite generally lagging behind when it comes to embracing new Facebook features, the UK is starting to see some f-commerce traction. Perhaps the best known example is digital fashion powerhouse, ASOS, who have their own Facebook shop. But what are the real opportunities behind F-commerce for brands and businesses here in the UK?

F-commerce enables smaller brands and businesses to set up a secure shop without the hassle of owning and setting up their own e-commerce store. Challenger brands will seek digital market share from e-commerce giants by opening up shop on Facebook. Larger brands can use Facebook as an alternative engagement platform to their main e-commerce site or as a way of selling different or targeted merchandise.

The key to f-commerce success will, of course, remain in users purchasing from stores in sufficient quantity to justify investment. This does not appear to be an issue. A March 2011 WebTrends report suggests that Facebook conversion rates range from 2-4% – this doesn’t sound much but it’s pretty much on par with e-commerce stores. The nascent industry will rely on customer trust in the Facebook platform, ease of use, social buying and going straight from a Facebook advert or a friend’s recommendation to purchasing an eye-catching product – a new social take on impulse/checkout purchases.

It’s time for brands who want to, or can sell to consumers to consider how f-commerce fits into their business model. If it’s suitable for their business, it may be worth entering the market while it’s still young.