It’s tempting to dismiss the social commerce survey published today by iProspect as just the latest missive from the Duh! Department.

The survey, conducted by JupiterResearch, found that 33% of Internet users had relied on sites with user-generated recommendations to make buying decisions.

Frankly that number is surprisingly low, particularly considering that Amazon–by virtue of it’s user recommendations–fits the survey’s profile and considering what we know about the impact of social recommendation in the offline world. Writes Pete Cashmore at Mashable:

It’s hardly a surprise that users make decisions about what to buy based on Amazon reviews, and in fact Amazon was by far the most influential of the sites listed, with 28% of Internet users questioned saying they’d made a purchase based on info from Amazon.

The runner-up might be a little worrying: Yahoo Answers, which seems to be populated by teens who provide misleading answers about as often as they provide correct ones, influences 4% of users when they come to make a purchase.

I’d be more worried about the small numbers for big social network players. MySpace, which 2% of users cited as influencing a decision, lapped Facebook which was only cited by 1%; and iVillage, which offers great product-based discussion groups for buyers considering home appliance purchases, was cited by less than 0.5% of respondents. Those numbers suggest one of three things: either there is enormous, untapped potential for growth in commerce touched off by social networking hub;  or users like their commerce and community to remain separate; or the survey is plain wrong.

What the survey seems to suggest is that Internet purchases are most commonly made buy people who begin with the intent to purchase. And those people head to sites like Amazon.com that are identifiable as stores. Forty-six percent of respondents said they the reason they searched Amazon was to buy something, and 28% said the site influenced their decision to buy. Meanwhile 49% of respondents said they searched Facebook to connect to friends, and, unsurprisingly only 2% said the site influenced a buying decision.

What remains untested is the impact of social network functionality on online buying.  Cashmore is “willing to bet that the addition of a ‘consumer reviews’ section on YouTube could increase it’s influence. Likewise, MySpace doesn’t currently provide any way to convene around products.”

I agree with Pete. But the proposition remains untested. According to published reports MySpace is speaking with potential commerce partners about a MySpace store. Such an effort would offer one test of social commerce. Another test would be to look at the effectiveness to date of social shopping start ups like NextThis and ShopWiki.com to see if social shopping works as a widget or whether the social aspect of shopping is enough to allow a start up store to compete with a powerhouse like Amazon. Finally a survey with a control group would be nice: do stores like Amazon or Musicians Friend which are packed with user reviews have higher or lower conversion rates than stores, like LandsEnd.com, which don’t? Do products with higher user ratings outsell those with lower ratings on Amazon?

Link Love:

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