Fusing Online Commerce and Social Network: Enhance Social Shopping Experience via Desktop Application A Master Project Presented By 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 consumers buying behaviors on Amazon.com

eBays 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

eBays official Facebook application Share eBay activities with Facebook friends On site application, hard to reach, limited functionality. Facebook eBay Marketplace

Problems with eBays 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 eBays commercial functionalities with Facebooks social networking features Should improve users 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 users 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 users 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 users 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 Design Interface 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 friends 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 users 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