Social ShoppingAccording to an online shopping survey conducted by e-consultancy, retailers who currently don’t submit feeds to comparison engines may be missing out on the growth of online shopping. With 56% of consumers claiming their online spending will not be effected by the ‘credit crunch’ and 62% claiming they are now more likely to consult reviews written by other web shoppers before buying – it’s the perfect time to add Social Shopping to your marketing mix.

myShopBag.co.uk is a social recommendation website for shopping online. The site features over 3.5 million products from hundreds of high street and independent shops. Members of the site pick items they like by creating interesting lists of products, and share these lists with their friends and other members of the community.

Unlike other price comparison websites, members can add items from anywhere on the web, and feature them on the site entirely for free. This provides a great opportunity for small niche, online shops and retailers to tap into a new market, reaching a wider audience with their products, costing nothing more than the time it takes to add their best items to the site. If the community likes the items uploaded, the higher they will appear on the site. This is also an added advantage over traditional price comparison sites where products are often ordered based on how much the merchant is willing to pay for the visitor, and ensures that traffic is based on quality rather than marketing budget available, helping the best items rise to the top of the pile.

All this makes the site a uniquely interesting place to shop this Christmas and a fantastic opportunity for small niche retailers to expand their reach online.