Today’s show is the second in a mini-series on the changing face of business. On Friday’s show we talked about how Google is keeping search traffic on the Google platform and is not sending organic search results to the source pages in the way it used to. Traffic to businesses is dramatically reduced. This will cause many businesses who relied largely upon organic search to either adapt to whatever will replace organic search, or they will face bankruptcy.

This is also going to affect every aspect of retail. So much has been written about the retail apocalypse. There is no question that the footprint of traditional retail is changing.

There is much less diversity in shopping experience today than when I was a teenager. In the US we had numerous department store chains including Bloomingdales, Macy’s Sears, Kmart, Bergdorf Goodman, Filenes, Lord & Taylor, Neiman Marcus, JC Penny, Walmart Target Montgomery Ward, Ames, and countless others. Today, only a small fraction of those remain.

We are all familiar with the e-commerce revolution and how Amazon and Walmart are increasingly dominating this space. Even major retailers including Home Depot and Best Buy have a larger online catalog with products that are only a couple of days away from your home.

But the new revolution is in a form of shopping called social shopping. This has been in existence in China for more than 8 years and is still in experimental stages in the US on a limited basis with specific platforms.

So what is social shopping? It is a method of e-commerce that integrates the social aspects of human interaction into the online shopping experience. It leverages social media platforms and online communities to facilitate the discovery, research, sharing, and purchasing of products and services. Think influencers. Think buying events.

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