An example of Social Shopping site

ZEBO

Type – private
Founded – August 2004
Headquarters – SanFrancisco, CA
Key people – Roy de Souza, Founder/CEO
Industry – Product ratings and reviews
Products – zebo.com and ZEBO Strip desktop applications
Website – www.zebo.com

ZEBO is an internet company based in San Francisco, CA. ZEBO hosts a website database of user reviews and discussions on what people own and what people want to buy. The web site is described as being "For what you own, For what to buy and For Friends". It also describes it as a "Better way to decide what to buy". ZEBO is in a new and yet unproven space that attempts to combine the undoubted success of social networks such as MySpace with consumers desire to buy things on the internet e-commerce. Some call this Social Shopping.

Geographic scope - ZEBO accepts members and discussions on any products by users anywhere in the world (though ZEBO is presently only available in English).

What one can do on ZEBO:
- create a personalized profile about what one owns, wants, and loves to shop for
- check out what other people have and want
- get and give valuable tips and advice
- talk online about one’s shopping needs
- discuss products with one’s friends
- rate products
- make shopping
- create photo albums and share them with the friends
- invite and grow the friends list and rank the friends

Some other features on ZEBO are:
• Celebrity profiles - What the stars own and want, as reported by them!
• ZEBuzz - Realtime conversation board where you can ask for advice, or just chat with other people who are bored, too!
• ZEBOStrip and Graffiti - Post your photos with the ZEBOStrip application, share them with friends and use the Graffiti feature to draw on them and write wacky stuff.
• WIWT (What I Wore Today) blogs.
• ZEBO Groups - Start a group about whatever you want to keep in touch with your friends about.
• Shops on ZEBO - A bunch of cool stores selling almost everything you can think of.

Categories of products that are available on ZEBO - Apparel & Accessories, Arts, Crafts & Hobbies, Baby & Parenting, Health, Books & Magazines, Electronics, Garden & Patio, Gifts & Collectibles, Home, Jewelry & Watches, Pet Care, & Sports & Fitness, Food & Beverages, Music, Office &Business, etc.

Revenue streams:
- ZEBO seller’s fees (all Individual Sellers pay a fixed fee of 5% of the item CPS (Cost Per Sale); the Merchant Sellers decide how much they would like to pay ZEBO. They can pay 10%, 15% or 20% of the CPS) – this is the main revenue stream for the company
-
Possible additional revenue in the future:
- Currently, there is no setup fee charge to become a ZEBO Shop Seller. However, this policy is subject to change at any time without notice
- The Seller can place his/her product in as many as three categories. Currently, the company doesnt set up to charge for additional placement, but may be in the future
- Organization of marketing surveys on the site (regarding different products or purchasing habits of the users)
- advertising on the site

Adding value for the users, how :
- ZEBO offers the most Seller-friendly pricing model. Most sites work on Cost Per Click (CPC), a web-site advertising method which means that the Seller pays for every click, which can include more browsers and surfers than genuine buyers. ZEBO works on a Cost Per Sale (CPS) model wherein the Seller is obliged to pay only when he has a confirmed sale

Unique characteristics of the site – the majority of Social Shopping sites don’t sell anything, but just provide the information about the products, whereas on ZEBO users can do both: studying about the products recommended by community and sell/buy the stuff.

Benefits for the user (seller):
- making money on selling the stuff the one doesn’t need
- low cost of selling
- no charge until one sells an item
- zero Risk (there is no deposit that the seller makes or minimum sales guarantee that the seller gives)
- establishing the cost per sale by the seller
- ZEDO is an experienced advertising based company and can sell significant volumes for the seller

Because the company’s business model is based mainly on the revenue from the selling/buying operations on the site (by its users), the main way to increase profit is increasing traffic on the sites (attracting more and more new visitors). This is achieved by:
• ZEBO gets its traffic primarily through leading search engines like Google and Yahoo. The ZEBO team has optimized the product pages so that the users’ products get top of the line display on search result pages of leading search engines.
• The site also uses its expertise in online advertising to get maximum returns from cross promotions it undertakes with other sites.
• Customers know that they can find the right product and right price they're looking for at ZEBO Shop. When they visit ZEBO Shop they get a combination of a variety of brands in every product category, great service, and competitive prices.