Although it’s been around for years, the social shopping trend peaked during the December 2009 holiday season. More retailers and consumers than ever are online. But the tipping point for e-tail arrived as eCommerce is quickly becoming mobile, location-aware, and socially networked.

According to the Harvard Business Review, social commerce is one of the key trends for 2010. Razorfish pronounced the mainstreaming of connected consumers in their annual FEED report (2009). Privacy concerns aside, people are embracing the opportunity to narrowcast our retail transactions and publicize our consumer preferences. As a result, social shopping is taking brand affiliation and ambassadorship to a whole new level.

Opt-in social shopping appears to be the next mechanism for elevating companies and their products and services to Lovemark status. According to Mitch Joel, the power of social shopping is “the ability to connect directly with the brand and build friendships with individuals who have like-minded interests.” For some time now, Saatchi & Saatchi has tracked exactly how those consumer communities are fueled by loyalty to a set of shared values and/or similar lifestyle choice represented by the brand.

The stage was set for the popularization of connected consumption as web users became accustomed to the presence of recommendation engines on eCommerce sites, and the increasing number of brands on social networks like Facebook. Whereas few people admit to trusting advertising messages, most of us (70%) will admit we use social comparison models, peer recommendations, and friend referrals when making purchase decisions.

The iPhone and 3rd party app development is another foundational element supporting structures of connected consumption. A collection of new social shopping apps for smartphone users promise to simplify the process of sharing purchase history with family and friends. Although it’s not news that we construct and communicate our identities through consumer habits, it’s likely we’ve never done so quite so publicly prior to the mass adoption of smartphones. On their handhelds mobile shoppers, theatregoers, diners, and cafe crawlers are laying down a set of digital footprints through the malls, shops, and marketplaces—a trail of P2P referrals for friends to follow. No small wonder that articles about the advertising potential of geo-loco apps like Foursquare are popping up all over the web.

Online and via handheld computing, connected consumers are constructing and curating (I know, that was a lot of “Cs” in a row, forgive me) a microweb via our wish lists and bookmarks, product ratings and blog comments, Facebook fanpage memberships and GPS tags. As researchers have pointed out at the MIT Media Lab (pdf is here), the emergence of these digital interest-driven shopping networks is contributing to consumers becoming more information-aware. This in turn drives comparison shopping trends, increases participation in loyalty programs, and results in the creation of valuable (and influential) user generated content—sure to please eCommerce retailers and social media marketers.

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