fusing online commerce and social network: enhance social shopping experience via desktop...
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Fusing Online Commerce and Social Network:Enhance Social Shopping Experience via
Desktop Application
A Master Project PresentedBy
Ning Song
Introduction: Overview
• Investigate the possibility to create a unique social shopping environment for shoppers.
• Design an application that merges shopping functionalities of online marketplace with the social networking capability of social network community.
• Create a prototype that answers to the design challenge.
Social Commerce & Social Shopping
• Social commerce: merging of online shopping and social networking activities
• Social shopping : a form of social commerce• Online word-of-mouth(WOM)• Consumer activities such as creating user
contents, product review, recommendations and rating, etc (Stephen and Toubia, 2009)
Existing Studies• Chevalier and Mayzlin (2006), effect of online
book review on the overall sale numbers of books
• Singer and Sundararajan (2008) studied the correlation between peer preferences and consumer’s buying behaviors on Amazon.com
eBay’s Social Commerce Ambition
• Amazon.com : a social commerce pioneer• eBay is quickly catching up• eBay aims to become a social commerce
marketplace• Moves: opens up API for developers, own
social network and improved social commerce functions on site.
Existing Applications eBay Desktop• The official eBay
desktop client• Enabled many eBay
functions • Lack social commerce
functions
• eBay’s official Facebook application
• Share eBay activities with Facebook friends
• “On site” application,hard to reach, limited functionality.
Facebook eBay Marketplace
Problems with eBay’s Social Commerce Applications
• There are not many of them• Even less focus on “social shopping”• Limited functionalities
Designing a New Social Shopping Environment
• Application that merge eBay’s commercial functionalities with Facebook’s social networking features
• Should improve user’s overall social shopping experience
Research Questions
• A) How can I combine functionalities of social media website with functionalities of online commerce website to create unique social shopping experiences for online shoppers and social media users?
• B) What are the features that should be included in such applications in order to facilitate user’s social shopping activities?
Analyzing Social Shopping Tasks
• Functionalities related to eBay product information – Search for eBay listings by search keywords– Browse search results in respond to search
requests– Check for listing details for individual eBay items
• Functionalities related to eBay purchase– Save (bookmark) item for future viewing– Remind user of item status– Direct link to the actual listing page for item
purchase
• Functionalities related to Facebook social communication– Access to user’s Facebook friends/groups info.– Search Facebook for information related to the
item of interest– Communicate with friends about the item of
interest– Share with friends of links, images or other media
formats – Possibility to expand user’s social network while
shopping socially
Building the Application
Goals Recap• Incorporate essential eBay + Facebook
functionalities• Create unique social shopping environment
Technology
• Language: Actionscript 3• Environment: Flash builder 3 • Application: Adobe AIR desktop application• Advantage:
-Run on different operating systems/platforms-Easy download/installation-Friendly development environments
Web Communication Structure • eBay and Facebook API Protocol: REST Data format: JSON Official Actionscript library
Interface DesignInterface design principles by Constantine and
Lockwood (2000):• The structure principle• The simplicity principle• The visibility principle• The feedback principle• The tolerance principle
Early UI Design Example
OVERVIEW OF APPLICATION
Facebook login button, click to show Facebook friend list
Facebook friend list, click to show chat area
Search button, search eBay and Facebook
Setup, Facebook login/out
Trash can, drag item over to delete
Help page
Drag friend’s icon to desktop
Application Walkthrough
Application Functionalities
• Search for eBay items• Browse eBay search results• Check for listing details for eBay items• Direct link to the actual listing page• Save (bookmark) item in the application• Remind of item status• Share eBay item on Facebook (title, link, picture)
• Log user into Facebook• Display Facebook friend list• Search Facebook fan groups by keywords• Display user’s Facebook groups • View member information of Facebook groups• Add members as friends• Post and display messages to friends on Facebook• Post and display comments to posts on Facebook
Discussion
• Design goal recap: Create an application that merges the
shopping functionalities of eBay with the social networking capability of Facebook to create a unique social shopping environment for users.
Implementation
• Investigate the necessary eBay and Facebook social shopping activities
• Design an application with functionalities that facilitate these activities
• Design interface applying the interface design principles
Future Extension
• Debug• Code optimization • Further improve social shopping
functionalities • UI optimization