Top 10 Social Commerce Highlights of 2009

So to round off 2009, the year of the realtime web, here are the top 10 social commerce highlights that captured our attention.

1 / 1-800-Flowers Claims First Retail Transaction Inside Facebook – at 11:50 am EST on July 8, 2009 1-800 Flowers. Is this the future for monetizing the social web?

2 / Toy manufacturer Mattel starts selling direct with DecisionStep’s ShopTogether social shopping toolbar at http://shop.mattel.com. Manufacturers (finally) lose fear of e-commerce, and jump in fully loaded with social shopping.

3 / Facebook Connect goes mainstream as a social shopping tool (43% retailers use now, further 31% to adopt in next 12 months), with Fluid’s ‘Fluid Social social shopping app leading the vanguard (Vans and Jansport) allowing shoppers to shop together, seek advice, share opinions and purchases.

4 / Dell’s Twitter deal feed nets $7m in sales.  Sometimes the simplest ideas are the best.  Realtime deals for the Realtime web.

5 / Carrefour, the world’s largest hypermarket retailer and the world’s 2nd largest retailing group starts selling on Facebook with Faceshopping (flash deal feeds).

6 / Amazon’s new Universal Wishlist & Tag-Based Reviews up the ante (again) for the bread (ratings and reviews) and butter (social wishlists) of social commerce.

7 / Groupon, the city-based group-buy deal site profitable within 6 months of launch, gets $30m in funding, open in 26 cities and adding new city every week (see also Dell Swarm, Intel Fan Plan, Adidas Freestripes).  Social Couponing, it’s here.

8 / Burberry’s Art of the Trench shows how luxury brands can do social commerce, a “user generated, brand curated” gallery supporting ratings and comments linked to their e-commerce platform and powered by the ubiquitous Facebook Connect.

9 / Facebook starts (semi-) publicly testing its upcoming payment system that will transform Facebook into a social commerce platform.

10 / The Limited US fashion retail chain opens a newsfeed store on Facebook allowing users to buy directly from newsfeeds.  A new spin on social media storefronts (Cartfly, Told’ya and Cartinni) that can be syndicated across the social web.

Also of note Vente Privée, Europe’s social commerce poster child and member-get-member private shopping event site gets valued at $1.5bn; Amazon, Ebay and Gilt seek to snap up.

So that’s a wrap for 2009.  Happy New Year To All!