Bargain hunting via the web is increasingly social, survey finds

Social networking online is taking on a new role in the midst of the rocky economy, with nearly 30% of online shoppers in a recent survey saying the best way to find discounts online is through link forwarding, peer comments or social sites.

In the survey of 1,000 online consumers from e-commerce technology firm Guidance and market research firm Synovate, e-mail topped the list as the preferred way to find out about bargains online, with 45% citing it. Other forms of social bargain hunting also are gaining ground, such as forwarding a link about a good deal to friend, cited by 16.5% as the way they most often discover bargains online. 9% said they learn about deals most often from other shoppers’ comments in review on retail sites, and 3% said Twitter, Facebook and other social networking sites were their top sources. “Two years ago, social media wasn’t even considered a source of traffic by merchants,” says Jon Provisor, Guidance chief technology officer and owner. “But there’s a huge opportunity here for retailers to employ a social commerce strategy that gets peers talking to each other about the deals they’re finding.” Rounding out the rest of the top sources of information for discounts online was messages on the retailer web site at 16% and banner ads at 10%.

In other findings, the survey determined that the youngest respondents – ages 18-24 – were most likely to find information about bargains from peers rather than retailers. 39% chose “peer-centric” answers – links from friends, shopper comments, or social sites – compared with 29% of the survey population overall. Younger consumers are almost most likely to look for bargains on social sites: 7% of the youngest group said it’s the best way to find bargains, while no one above age 65 said so. Additionally, consumers with children are more likely to find out about bargains through a social site – 6% versus 1.3% of those with no children in the house.

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