Girls In Tech

With the rise of e-commerce, shopping has lost most of its social charms. But a new website called FriendShopper.com is combating the lonely shopper blues by connecting friends in a real-time, centralized environment, featuring easy ways to share content and interact similar to in-person shopping.

FriendShopper.com isn’t so much a social network as it is a web-based social platform; it is the first site to offer the social perks of shopping in real-time on the web. With FriendShopper, users can manipulate integrated social tools like instant messaging and content sharing in a highly targeted, custom-built environment meant to simulate the live shopping experience.

“The goal of FriendShopper is to bring back the fun and interactivity that was always part of the shopping experience, before e-commerce was born,” said FriendShopper founder and CEO Josh Bochner. “While some call themselves ‘social shopping’ websites by aspiring to create a mash-up of social networking and shopping, we believe that shopping is, at its essence, a social experience. We’ve targeted that experience and re-created it for the web.”

A web-based chat function, docked on the right side of the page, simulates the interaction friends might have in real life while checking out products. Friends can offer opinions and enjoy the shopping experience together, just as they would at a mall or department store. The dialogue feature allows users to converse and share with multiple friends simultaneously.

To get started using the tool, shoppers simply drag-and-drop the FriendShopper bookmarklet into the browser toolbar, surf any online storefront and click the bookmarklet button whenever they find an item they would like to save or share with friends. FriendShopper will add the item to the user’s “My Items” page, and clicking on the “Add to Chat” button allows him or her to instantaneously share that item with a friend. Notifications and thumbnail images appear anytime a friend shares an item with the user.

FriendShopper’s search functionality empowers shoppers with the option to search retailers or specific products by keyword without leaving the website. Just as items can be bookmarked and shared, shoppers can add their favorite stores to their FriendShopper profile using the bookmarklet.

Create folders and move items into them with a simple-to-navigate folder explorer view. Shoppers can customize item names and pictures to find them easily later. To sign up for a free account with FriendShopper and start shopping, visit www.FriendShopper.com.