The question, ‘Does my bum look big in this’, is no longer saved for your best mate or boyfriend in the shop fitting room. Shopping for the perfect derriere-enhancing outfit can now be a collaborative effort between millions of strangers with the rise of social shopping networks.

Social shopping at OSOYOU

Online shopping isn’t a new venture; sites like Net-A-Porter and ASOS are institutions of the online shopping scene. What is relatively new, however, is shopping via social networks. Moving beyond individual retailer sites, social networking drives word-of-mouth sales, relying upon network peers rather than sales types to influence purchases and offering the opportunity to share best buys, wish lists and style choices.

You can’t blame marketing types for harnessing the social networking potential. As retail store hits have gone down, retail site referrals from Facebook and Twitter hits have gone up. Rumour even had it earlier this year that Twitter might start offering discounts and retail opportunities in the near future.  And recent research has shown that brands can increase popularity by doing so. According to Webtrends, 19% of social media users said they would regard brands more highly if they interacted with them on a social media site and, of those who have already interacted with a brand in this way, 74% said their approval of the brand increased.

Forgetting the positives for brands, whether online platforms can compete with the real experience of shopping that we know and love has been a question on a lot of lips since social shopping networks popped up.

“Some people can argue that nothing can compare to a Saturday afternoon shopping spree with your girlfriends and in some aspects I agree,” says social shopping network, OSOYOU.com, editor, Jess Markwood, “But what we’re saying here is that an actual shopping trip and shopping online can sit hand-in-hand.”

As Jess explains, social shopping networks are making the conventional shopping experience a little easier and even more fun. “At OSOYOU we offer not only an opportunity to shop most of the High Street online all in one place, but also a pre-shopping destination, where you can research your purchases before your you leave, creating a shopping list that you can print out and take with you,” Jess adds.

Some of the communities at StyleHive

Described as “part social-networking club, part pop-culture lab”, Style Hive – another social shopping network – is a way of connecting stylish types who can swap fashion hints and tips and connect with retailers. Its format is similar to Twitter, allowing you to ‘follow’ members and the result is an encapsulation of the culture of shopping.

Shoppers no longer have to rely upon glossy magazines for the latest fashion trends, they’re using their internet peers to make style and price-savvy choices – and even dictate trends. Described as a Digg for shoppers, Iliketotallyloveit is a social network that allows members to add and vote on products, directly influencing trends and sales.

But more than creating profiles and sharing information, hints and tips, other sites, like MyItThings ensures members are part of their own shopping experience in the creation of a user-generated magazine. This is made up of reviews of favourite products, books, films or music, all by the members of the network.

Other online shopping sites have also realised the benefits of building online communities for both individual members and brands. ASOS has developed ASOS Life, an online community, which aims to capture some of the feeling of real-life in-store shopping. Very cleverly, they’ve found new ways to create hype around new products; last week they offered shoppers the chance to get a free limited edition Giles Deacon scarf by visiting the virtual Nibbles Boutique on ASOS. The experience even offers a virtual queue – unmistakably better than the real-life experience.

ASOS Life community manager, Ilana Fox, believes that social shopping networks offer more than bargains. “A lot of our customers are of the age where they don’t deal via email anymore, they’re a lot more open and transparent about the way they communicate, so we also have to be as a company,” she told nma.com this month.

“I think shopping online should be a social experience,” she continued, “Although you can see the clothes in catwalk videos, you can’t touch them. The next best thing is talking to other people and asking what they think. You can send someone an email with a link, but if you don’t get a reply for a couple of hours you might not buy it. So it’s good to have other people there to give you feedback.”

One of Gemsta's virtual malls

With ASOS Life enjoying an increase of active users by 40% a month, you can’t argue that shoppers aren’t finding the experience of social shopping networks at the very least useful.

A new website that launched last week has also gone a step further in trying to create a virtual shopping experience. Gemsta chief executive, Richard Laing, said the site aims to, “bring the power of the brand to internet,” in a space that is, “unlimited by real world constraints.” The site offers a ‘shopping portal’ and aims to simulate the shopping experience online using photo-realistic images of malls, plazas and shop brands that can be explored virtually (unusually diverting from photo-realism through the additional use of cartoon characters, G-Bees). Gemsta has given shopping a whole new dimension.

While it’s easy to be skeptical about the careful arrangement of social shopping networks and virtual shopping experiences (and imagine corporate middle men cashing in on increased sales from an online communities), it’s also easy to realise the appeal of social shopping networks in their ability to discover bargains, new trends and experience shopping in a whole new way. Building upon online shopping sites’ success, social shopping networks are making online shopping more sociable, fun and a lot more like the real experience. Hand-in-hand, the good old fashioned High Street and online social shopping networks offer the best of both shopping experiences.