New York — A new, social characteristic is now available to users of Bing Shopping. After having made it possible for users to share their opinions on search results relating to news and entertainment, Microsoft’s Bing search engine has introduced a new social integration feature to its Shopping section today that lets shoppers share products with members of their social circle via Facebook, Twitter, or email, expecting to get a feedback from friends on whether to buy or not. “Folks can now ask for input before they make that important purchase,” a representative for Bing, said in a statement.
Users can now post their shopping search results on their favorite social networking sites in order to consult a friend’s advise while shopping online. The sharing choices are available only on the product reviews page, which can be accessed by clicking on the “User Reviews” link on the Shopping search results.
Sharing is permitted through Facebook and Twitter. Users can share the shopping search results either by clicking on the Facebook, Twitter or email link and then typing any questions about the product.
Lawrence Lam, program manager Bing Shopping, and Sonam Saxena, product manager Bing Shopping, inquired why online shopping should be a less social activity than the long-established experience.
The execution is simple, which means it works and is not confusing.
“A lot of us do not shop exclusively. Going to the shopping plaza is often a social thing, so why should shopping online be whatsoever different? 75% of shoppers seek advice from others even when shopping online and now Bing shoppers can too!” the Bing team says.
“Bing displays a shortened URL and product name, but leaves it to you to craft the text of the message. In the last announcement we refreshed the look of the reviews page so you can navigate the reviews from users and experts. Today we have unfolded a few more links to make it easy for you to ask for the input of your closest advisor — your social network,” Lam stated.
This latest move forward in the development of Bing Shopping comes at just a month after the Redmond company unveiled new features to the search engine shopping vertical. In this regard, users will undoubtedly welcome Microsoft’s consistent approach to advancing Bing.
“You have had sharing capabilities for various kinds of results like news and entertainment for a few sometime and now we bring you this sharing experience into Bing Shopping! We see our users using it not only to get feedback on price but on whether a particular product would look good on them, has a better model, etc., especially with all the great social networking tools available for integration into search engines,” Lam revealed.
Bing states that it anticipates people to use the feature to get suggestions from their friends not only on pricing, but more about articles like if an article of clothing would “look good on them” or if there is a better model for a product, etc.