Ever had the experience that you spotted something cool on a social website such as Instagram and Pinterest and you wanted to get it, but more often than not you could not find a shop to buy it from? As a consumption economy we always want new and fancy things in our lives and online shopping has made this much easier.

The website Fancy.com solves this problem by allowing the direct connection between seller and buyer in a social environment. Fancy is the place that allows you to discover and buy amazing things curated by the global community. So how does this business model work?

The website can be compared to many different websites, it allows you to buy high-end things on a website as as good looking as Tumblr/ Pinterst and most importantly as money-driven as Amazon. It is based on a new retail model that allows you to shop by accidentally discover new items instead of you deliberately searching for them. In fact it works much the same way as Pinterest, only the website has a direct purchase button at every product displayed.

It works as followed, you spot something on the internet and save the image because you like it. After that you go to the website and upload the photo of the product including a title, you add a link to the companiy and set it under the correct category. The image is than posted on you Fancy feed and is indexed by the Fancy database. The company is then notified that the product is on the Fancy website and the company can then ad a direct buy link. After this my image, that I uploaded, is visible on my news feed and all my friends are able to buy the product directly on the Fancy website. Fancy business model is taking a 10% commission on each of the products sold,

This business model is such an success that even Pinterest is planning to introduce a “buy” button that would let users purchase some items from inside the online scrapbooking service. This would mean direct competition with a website that already controls a 23% of traffic to e-commerce sites (Business insider, 2015). Furthermore, the approach used by Fancy can create problems in the institutional arrangements, the user generated content has a lingering problem with liability. Especially copyright infringement is a constant threat for the Fancy website, the wrong content can result in a law suit against the website itself.

However, it can be concluded that this new social buying trend is potentially changing the way we shop, this also means that websites such as Amazon need to compete with a new kind of buying behaviour. After all, for most consumers this trend is a welcoming site, it creates new value in the online shopping experience.

Sources:

Fancy.com

Business insider: http://uk.businessinsider.com/pinterest-buy-button-2015-2?r=US