Ebay adds Social Networking Features to Increase Sales

A new paradigm of market is taking place in the face of bourgeoning popularity of web 2.0 and social networking sites. The success rate to mix marketing strategies in tandem with social network is very high. Many online business firms have already done beta testing and have got positive results.

The viable online shopping site – e-bay – could not escape introducing social networking strategy to pick up its business which is reported to have declined by 6% from a year earlier while power seller listings were down by 25%, profy reports.

In an effort to increase the declining growth of sales, ebay has introduced a nw section of its website called ‘eBay Neighborhoods’ which aims at providing a platform for people’s participation and help ebay users communicate with each other and share their buying experiences.

With eBay Neighborhoods, users can upload photos, product reviews, tips and responses related to a wide variety of products, each of which has its own 'neighborhood' in the network. For example, coffee drinkers would join and contribute to the Coffee Lovers neighborhood (currently the most popular), while gaming fans might visit the Xbox 360 neighborhood to find reviews and discussions from like-minded game players before shopping.