Shopping with friends is the common favorite habit. We easily trust our friends when it comes to a product review or opinion. Our friend’s word is by far the most reliable thing we can base our judgments on: someone who is not biased, who has tested the product and has no reason to lie.

Who’s your social media friend?

But is this the case with our social media friends? Most of us have already 500+ friends on Facebook who can easily get in touch with us via a direct messages, who can see our personal updates and photos. However we don’t even know who the most of our Facebook friends are.

When you open your friend list in Facebook, do you even recognize all the faces? Do most of them look even familiar?

The social media world has changed the meaning of friendship. While our “real-world” friend is the person we can trust (because we think we know him well), our “social” friend is a stranger we can trust because he has no idea who we are and thus won’t judge us or make our secret public (as we just don’t have any acquaintances in common).

Let’s not forget about the “anti-social” campaign which offered Facebook users a free burger for “un-friending” 10 of their friends. It was fully based on the today’s phenomenon: the majority of your Facebook friends are total strangers – why not sacrifice them for a burger? The campaign thus estimated the cost of your Facebook friend: 37 cents.

So what is the social media friendship and trust? How do our social media friends influence our “real” life, our shopping and spending? Who and why do we trust when it comes to shopping?

According to the most recent stats results…

Do we trust our social media friends when making our shopping decisions? The stats results are ambiguous. While most of our social media friends are strangers, we still trust them enough to rely our shopping decisions on them.

We trust people we know (but we do like strangers’ advice as well!): According to Econsultancy survey of 2009, 90% of consumers who shop online trust recommendations from people they know; 70% trust opinions of unknown users.

Most of us use social media: 80 percent of U.S. consumers say they use social media on a monthly basis. And most of us are “socialized shoppers”: more than 40 % of U.S. adults are using social media in their shopping experiences (according to Leo Burnett and Arc Worldwide research conducted in 2010).

Our social networks play a great deal of influence on us when it comes to decision making: 50 % of of respondents (aged older than 25 years) and 65% of respondents (aged 18 to 24) said they considered information shared on their social media communities when making a decision (According to 2009 eMarketer survey results).

Consequently, most of us are actually influenced by the shopping advice we get through social network: 74 % of those who received shopping-related advice through a social network found it to be influential in their decision. Besides, two-thirds of shoppers tend to spend more online after recommendations from their social friends.

Lastly, the most “socialized” product categories are hardware/software and books: About half of respondents shopping for computer hardware/software and books are likely to incorporate social media into the shopping process while only 9% of people shopping for laundry detergent and soft drinks are likely to use social media (Leo Burnett and Arc Worldwide research, 2010).

Are you being sold?

Given the amount of trust we have in our social media friends, it’s no wonder marketer take advantage of that. Joining social media networks like Facebook and Myspace to “befriend” your customer has long been a traditional social media marketing tactic. This is no news already.

But what about the social media giant like Facebook that “sells” its advertisers’ products by incorporating the selling power of your social media friends? Its ad formats tell users which of their Facebook friends have expressed interest in the brand or product featured in the ad.

These ad-formats are called “social-context ads” and are based on data collected on the likes and friends of its users. Think about it: you think the brand is cool, you push the “Like” button and now you may be advertising this brand to your social media friends!

Are you a “socialized” shopper? Are you being sold?

You may also enjoy reading Facebook for Business.

Consumers are easily manipulated because:

• they are bad at math;
• they shop with their heart rather than their head.

This means you might be wasting your money (that is not so easy to earn) because you are being manipulated.

Do you think this is fair? Would you like to be sure you are spending your money because you want, not because someone wants you to? Do you want to save?

Then let’s learn which tricks sellers may be using to manipulate your shopping behavior.

Shopping momentum

Shopping momentum occurs when a buyer literally “can’t stop”‘: the first purchase produces a psychological impulse that makes him / her buy more.

How this works: Shopping has two phases: deliberation and implementation. The actual buying moves us from deliberation to implementation phase: we continue buying without returning to the deliberation stage.

How not to be tricked: break the shopping momentum. A good way to do that is to pay by cash and use several envelopes / pockets where you take the money from:

• counting cash makes you think: you thus return to the deliberation stage;
• paying from different envelopes forces you to return to the deliberation stage to think if the purchase was a good idea.

Confused consumers

A sales technique called “disrupt-then-reframe” can trick consumers into buying.

How this works: the seller first presents a confusing sales pitch to a customer and then restates the pitch in a more familiar way. Meaning, they first utilize technical jargon, complex terminology or large product assortments and thus “attract the consumer’s attention” who becomes eager to ‘understand’ the pitch.

How not to be tricked: in this case, knowledge is your best weapons. Just remain cool-headed and realize you are being cheated.

Double discounts

Ironically, shoppers are more attracted to the double discount, even though it involves less savings. An average American is not very good at maths, which is why a sale offering “20 % off the original price plus an additional 25 % off the already-reduced sale price” is effective.

How this works: the maths behind this is both complex to explain and spot. Say, one store offers 45% discount, while another one offers 25% + 25% discount for the same product. Which one do you feel is better? The second one? Wrong! In reality, the second offer is about a ~43 percent discount, because the second discount is taken on the reduced amount after the first discount.

How not to be tricked: well, use a calculator! Counting your money is the best way to save it. So counting ho much you are actually saving will help you understand who is honest and who tries to trick you.

Post images by jpockele, Cosmic Kitty, Jesse757, artykle.com

Do you know that you don’t have to settle for traditional boring search when searching for products online? New technologies have brought with them new, exciting ways to search for anything and this has naturally affected the ecommerce sector.

So let’s have fun when searching for products online – this will allow for more gift ideas, inspiration and enjoyment:

Search Products by Color

Etsy, an online shop of handmade products, has developed color search for their own product database.

In fact, it offers two color search engines: one allows to pick colors randomly by browsing your mouse across the screen, the other one enables you to search by color and filter the search by a keyword:

Search Products by Similarity

Like.com is a visual product search engine that finds similar products by:

• color;
• shape;
• pattern;
• details.

Search results can be further refined by color, brand, style, and material.

PicitUp is another fun visual search engine that can return results based on:

• Visual similarity;
• Color;
• Shape.

The search results can be also filtered by size, store, and price range. Unlike Like.com it appears to return fewer results:

Shopping Social Search

There are a number of social shopping tools out there, my favorite being Thisnext. It shows users’ ratings and also has quite a handy feature to “See more like this” – this means the tool will offer you to search more items like the one you liked based on the combination of tags and categories:

Post image by orangeacid

Twitter can be an awesome shopping tool and one of the best things about that more and more companies provide an alternative customer support via Twitter.

This means, you can reach them within your favorite network and also discuss your issues in public.

So let’s see who you can find on Twitter so far (if you know any more companies, please comment, I will be constantly updating this post).

Cars:

TeslaMotors is another auto company to maintain an active Twitter stream.

Renault updates Renault_Live Twitter account (in French).

HarleyDavidson tweets company news and updates.

General Motors’s corporate bloggers “Robyn, Lesley, Wendy, Nuria, and sometimes Adam” tweet to update the world of company news.

FordCustService, updated by Shawn Lollie marketing specialist at Ford, this Tweeterfeed answers customer’s concerns and make it clear they value every customer. In reality, it is more like a support group:

Finance and Business:

HRBlock is the Twitter account by Tax company and software provider called H&R Block. Their Twitter profile is set to answer customers’ questions as well as share business news.

Kelly from Quicken Loans will answer any of your mortgage questions.

State Farm insurance company “for auto, life, health, home owners insurance and more” can be reached on Twitter for any finance-related questions.

Allstate is another well-known insurance company to be found on Twitter.

Hoovers.com tweets to inform followers of “the top business information provider in the world, represented on Twitter by blogger Tim Walker and communications chief Adam Hanin”.

Computers, Electronics and Internet:

Dell maintains multiple official Twitter profiles. None of them is officially designed to help customers but the good news is that it has multiple international accounts, so you can ping them depending on what country you are in.

ComcastCares is the most responsive Twitter customer support I am aware of. It has a person behind it who will answer your questions quickly and actually help solve your problem.

Embarq is another Internet service to be found on Twitter.

Plus.net is yet another Internet service provider streaming company updates via Twitter.

OfficeLiveGirl and OfficeLiveGal provide Twitter customer support for Microsoft Office Live.

Network Solutions tweet to build relationships with Twitter crowd and share company news.

Kodak has their Chief Blogger tweet their news and updates.

ThinkGeek is the great place to buy a geeky device or apparel, besides that they have an awesome Twitter stream to follow.

SanDisk, flash memory cards, mp3 players, USB drives manufacturer, for customer interaction.

Overstock can be followed on Twitter here.

Phones

Guy1067 is the name for Twitter account meant to help Car phone Warehouse’s customers as well as increase their engagement.

Canada’s wireless phone company TELUS Mobility can be found on Twitter for company news and updates.

Traveling and Transportation

JetBlue, a well-known airline ticket provider, has one of the most popular Twitter profiles I know.

British Airways maintain a pretty much active Twitter profile, addressing customers and also answering questions.

Southwest Airlines is another airlines company to be reached on Twitter.

Virgin Airlines rely on Twitter not only as a customer service tool for answering questions, but they truly build a rapport with their audience and encourage genuine interaction.

Going for a cruise? Catch @CarnivalCruise on Twitter to lean their offers and rates.

(Fast) Food

Brad from Starbucks posts personal Tweets as well talks to clients.

GottaWannaNeeda is a fun profile by Bojangles’ “Famous Chicken ‘n Biscuits”.

Popeyes Chicken and Biscuits tweets new offers and news.

SeamlessWeb, a place to order food online, streams company news and answers customers’ questions.

FriendofBigRock is the Twitter community for those who like Big Rock beer.

Whole Foods tweet organic news fresh and advice and can also be reached by customers.

Plan to have a big, delicious, premium-quality burger? Check out Carl’s Jr. on Twitter.

Hardee’s is another place to have a burger over Twitter.

Dunkin’ Donuts can be caught on Twitter any time. They have enjoyable Twitter stream, so be sure to check them out!

Bigelow Tea is a tea company with Twitter stream updated by Justin and Linda.

Clothes and Fashion

Best Buy CMO can be reached via Twitter to ask a question.

Zappos tweets via their CEO that goes by name “Tony”. The awesome thing about this account is that they follow back almost everyone, this means you can DM them privately.

Nordstrom is another fashion specialty retailer to be found on Twitter.

Pacsun clothing provider uses Twitter to unite its customers’ community.

Avelle is the retailer of designer handbags. Their Executive Vice President tweets company news and helps customers.

KEEN, shoes and bags manufacturer, leverage Twitter for customer service and community building.

Onlineshoes.com supports customers via Twitter here.

T.J. Maxx Stores welcome their customers’ ideas on Twitter.

Threadless, graphic T-shirts manufacturer, use Twitter to update followers of company news.

BustedTees is another manufacturer of T-shirts to be found on Twitter.

Jewelry store Xenabeauty can be found on Twitter here.

Delight.com maintains quite an active Twitter account.

Toys

Toys”R”Us is a globally recognized toys retailer tweeting about company special offers and deals.

Home

HomeDepot’s spokesman tweets to provide “another way for customers to ask about their projects and our stores”.

Etsy, an online marketplace for home-made products, also has the corporate Twitter profile.

Books

Borders.com Twitter profile is updated by “Matt.”

Health

GHChealth maintain rather an active and popular Twitter profile.

Polar Electro tweets via rep Chris.

Post image by foxypar4

Do you use FireFox? I bet you do because it is an awesome browser. What makes it even better is quite a number of tools you can add to enhance its functionality and customize it based on your needs. So let’s see how we can turn FireFox into a powerful shopping tool:

Woot Watcher monitors the Woot! web site, and keeps you updated with the current item, price, and if it is sold out.

BuyBuddy adds some social element to your Amazon shopping: as you browse the Web, the addon locates products that are offered through Amazon and ‘tags’ them. When you purchase these tagged products, the BuyBuddy toolbar will automatically select one of your buddies to associate with that purchase. Through the Amazon Associates program, a portion of the purchase price will be deposited by Amazon into your buddy’s Amazon Associates account.
If you don’t have any friends, you can always enter a list of charities or non-profit organizations that participate in the Amazon Associates program.

Price Protectr Toolbar has a huge number of cool features:

• Search for any product right from the toolbar (the search will open on a new tab);
• Watch the price with one click;
• Save products to buy them later;
• See retailer rating; etc

Currency converter: a very handy FireFox addon, especially if you often deal with different currencies. Just click on any currency data on any web page to convert that amount across over 180 foreign exchange rates right on your screen. A few more features include:

• Invert the conversion you make and access to daily, weekly, monthly, and annual charts depicting the historical exchange trends of the currency pair that you selected;
• Customize the settings based on your location;
• Remember your last conversion and use those FROM and TO parameters for your next conversion request so that you don’t need to make the same selections each time.

Coupon Searcher is a multi-feature browser toolbar for deal searching. It includes Google-powered search engine and desktop alert feature. It has both FireFox and Internet Explorer versions.

RetailMeNot: when you visit any store, it will inform you if it has a coupon code available for that store. You don’t ever notice it, it won’t bother you. Then you visit an ecommerce site, and then it pops up quietly on the page. So it won’t bug you unless you go shopping: see it only when you need it! The add-on works by updating an internal database once per week from the collaborative coupon sharing website – retailmenot.com

KeepCash Coupon Notifier is a similar to above – it notifies you when online coupons exist for a site that you are shopping at. You can forget that it’s installed and then when you’re shopping, it acts as a friendly reminder that there are online coupons available. Enjoy!

Book Burro is another similar sites but for books. When you visit a webpage with a book on it, it pops up showing you prices for that book at other booksellers. It doesn’t slow down your browser as no communication with other sites will occur until it is clicked. Clicking the panel will open up a list of your libraries, book stores and online services. In addition, information about pricing and availability is added to the list – all without visiting any other pages.

Price Drop is another shopping tool for Amazon: it adds a link to each product on Amazon inviting you to track its price. Just go to an Amazon product page, and start tracking it; you’ll get a notification if its price drops.
You can also check out your tracked product list using the drop icon, or the Tools->PriceDrop menu.

PriceAdvance is a handy shopping addon for FireFox and Internet Explorer that will look for the lowest price offered by Amazon.com, BestBuy or WalMart. It will instantly alert you to current deals once you visit the merchant’s website.

While you shop for products at your favorite merchants, PriceAdvance will automatically search other retailers for better prices. When prices are found a small overlay window will appear in the top left of your browser window. To view a product in the overlay, click the price or company logo.

PackageMapping extension makes it easy to get tracking information for a package and display the tracking progress on Google Maps. Simply highlight the tracking number, right click, and select “Track and Map Package”. The tool currently supports 4 service providers: UPS, U.S.P.S., FedEx, DHL.

Grocery List Generator helps with your grocery shopping. It is a helpful little addon to store your recipe-ingredients and other groceries you need regularly. It creates a well-organized grocery list to help make your grocery shopping as easy as possible.

A few tools for eBayers:

eBay Buddy is a Firefox addon for active eBayers. It provides comprehensive menus which allows you to easily access hundreds of sections on eBay as well as several related sites and tools.

eBay Counter is a Greasemonkey user script which adds a live countdown timer to active eBay auctions.

myTimeZone for eBay is a Firefox addon that allows to customize dates and times on eBay listings for your specific location. Besides, it provides automatic currency conversion and total price sorting options.

Post image by Glutnix

Twitter is the hugest phenomenon of today’s Internet. Connecting to people real-time (even if they are offline), getting instant updates from friends, being up-to-date with most recent news – these are just few advantages of the tool. Another possibility to make the most of Twitter is to use it for shopping.

Ask your friends their opinion on the product you plan to buy and you will get lots of Tweets immediately from people you trust. But Twitter shopping benefits are not limited to only that! Check out the following tips on using Twitter for shopping:

Use Twitter Search

Twitter offers an advanced search platform that you can use to find out what real people say about the retailer you are considering or a product you want to buy. Consider these quick tips on what operators you can use to get properly prepared for your purchase.

• Do you want to find negative reviews by the unsatisfied customer? Try to search Twitter for the retailer’s name and include to your search – [retailer's name ] search will return tweets by displeased people criticizing some news and products.

Example: [Amazon ]

• Check what reputable sources say about the store or product you are considering. Try to search for the store name and add from:twitter_username to restrict search results to what the Twitter user was saying.

Example: [Amazon from:mashable] to search for Amazon-related news discussed by Mashable.com

• Look for product or retailer mentions near you: use near:city_name advanced operator.

Example: [Nokia near:seattle]

• Search for product- or retailer-related questions: add ? to your search query.

Example: [Apple iPhone ?]

Create Your Twitter Group

TwitterGroups is a Twitter application that allows you to create your own group of interest; you can then promote it on Twitter and invite friends. Create a group specifically to exchange shopping lists and reviews with your online friends. You can also join other shopping-related groups; here are a few to consider:

• Amazon Explorers Club;
• eBay;
• Coupon Freaks.

Find Your Retailer on Twitter

Do you know that numerous online retailers are starting to use Twitter for customer service? Try to find the retailer you plan to buy from and try to:

• Ask him a public question (see how quick he will be to respond);
• See what others ask him – use this advanced search command: [@retailer_name] to find all Tweets addressed to him.

A few huge businesses that are on Twitter already:

• Dell Computers;
• ComCast;
• Samsung;
• Kodak;
• Ford.

You can also try to get the retailers find you! Most businesses monitor Twitter for their names mentions. Try to tweet using the retailer’s brand name and in some time you may hear from him!

So, no matter how much you might be tired of Twitter-related articles and guides, there is no denying the fact that Twitter is an awesome tool with unlimited yet-to-be-explored spheres of usage. So don’t forget to use it before buying anything!

Facebook unites your friends, relatives and colleagues for you to easily connect with them. Being thus a handy and popular social tool, it is quite natural it can be also turned into an awesome shopping tool: imagine your friends accompany you with your online shopping, giving you advice and sharing their experience!

Friends are the people you can trust; with Facebook applications you can ask them to review the products you plan to buy or rate a retailer you are considering. You can also help each other by exchanging coupon codes and notifying each other of best deals.

So here is the comprehensive collection of Facebook shopping tools:

Track Coupon Codes via Facebook:

Simply Best Coupons: this application is Facebook version of popular website SimplyBestCoupons.com. Without leaving Facebook you can find best coupons and deals. The procedure is really simple:

• Select your country;
• Select you favorite online stores and shopping categories;
• Select the notification type (email or facebook notification);
• Invite your friends;
• Search by the retailer’s name;
• Add your comments and rate the retailer:

Coupons.com offer printable discount coupons on Facebook:

“Simply add the application, and we’ll instantly provide you with a selection of coupons for everyday products. For every coupon you print, discard, or share with a friend, we’ll replace it with another until you’ve bled us dry!”

Next Coupons app allows the user to suggest retailers they’d like to receive coupons from, and also select from shopping categories that interest them. That way the deals the users get are tailored specifically to their interest, and they can be informed of hot coupons and discounts without even having to search for them.

Free Coupons: on adding the app you’ll see a list of popular brands, just click on any to add your favorite shops to your profile:

Cheap Deals & Coupons posts a box on the left side of your profile, then it feeds in 5 lines of text, which consists of deals on the Internet and how they are rated. A “5″ rating means that the deal is SUPER cheap. A “1″ means that the deal is no good! Immediately after adding the app, you’ll see the list of recent deals and coupons throughout the Internet.

Me coupons offers to give your friends a gift that lets them spend more time with you in real life. Send them a “One Free Hug” or “Free Drink” coupon or create a personalized coupon for that special friend. You can even text your friends your coupon so that they can redeem it in real life!

Coupons Community by eCoupons offers a handy navigation with a drop-down menus. Besides, it allows members to submit new coupons.

Get Organized with Facebook Shopping and Wish Lists:

What I Want app (which can also be added to pages) offers to add items to your wishlist from any store and notify your friends. You can share your wishlist with your Facebook friends or with non-Facebook users too:

• Manage your wishlist according to priority, quantity and purchases.
• Search for products from all your favorite online merchants such as Amazon, Apple, Wal-Mart, Target, Best Buy, Buy.com, Gap, Home Depot, Barnes & Noble, and thousands of others.
• Create: shopping lists, What-I-Want, What-I-Have, recommendations, wish lists, etc.

JungleBook shows your Amazon wishlists on your profile to let people know when you add items to it.

• Let your friends see what gifts you want, and find out what to buy your friends.
• Create and share lists of products on Amazon.
• Examples of lists you can create: “My favorite Books”, “Top 10 Rock Albums”, “Music I Bought This Year”, “Gadgets I Want From Santa”, etc.
• The lists you create are submitted to Amazon to be saved, and so are shown on both sites.

What would you buy? offers shopping polls and wishlists. Create a poll to compare two similar products and let your friends vote and browse through your friends’ polls.

Access Product Reviews:

Needdit lists reviews from people you know and trust.

CNET Product Review(s) displays a widget-like block reviewing an item. The search option sends the user to CNET site.

I Want One app provides you and your friends with the ability to vote on different Amazon.com products. Instead of trusting the customer reviews on Amazon you should ask your friends to review the product. Add the product to your list and ask your friends to vote on the product.

Comparison and Social Shopping via Facebook:

My Shopping allows you to shop online with your Facebook friends. You can search for books, music, movies, gadgets, clothing, or anything you have a need for. You can then rate, mark, and share items. For any item you can view how many of your friends like or dislike that item, as well as compare the lowest prices available from retail stores. Write reviews or rants, and let your peers know how you feel about that product.

Image credit: jelene