Squad Shopping

 

An intriguing phrase has been popping up on retail feeds. “Squad Shopping”. It would be easy  to imagine a pack of women roaming a shopping centre, however Squad Shopping refers to online shopping with your friends. It’s a shopping party, sharing your cart with facetime.  Imagine everyone watching their phone/ computer as friends look thru various websites and discuss products they are thinking of purchasing. Everyone is watching the same screen images and able to talk to each other. It’s a relatively new concept. The biggest uptake demographic is Gen Z females, with China heavily embracing this technology due to their strong culture of peer purchasing pressure. This demographic have grown up more comfortable with visual phone calls than audio.

In 2020 ex L’Oreal brand manager Elysa Kahn and her father invented a program called Squadded. Chrome partnered with Squadded and so the fun began. Squad shopping could be seen as riding the wave of group participation digital activities. You can remotely join with your friends for a streamed movie night or if music is your thing Spotify have group listening control Jam. Online gaming apps have options to bet with your mates. Squadded promotes applications such as Bridal party shopping or long distance shopping from your holiday location.

It would be easy to dismiss this shopping behavior if you don’t fall into this specific demographic. As a concept and existing product it has potential to evolve into a lot more. In time poor society it provides an avenue to consult with your most trusted panel of “influencers”- the ones you know best- your friends. The opinion of your besties holds much more weight than influencers you don’t personally know. Currently there are options to text or facetime your friends. But this speeds up the process by allowing you to move quickly between other sites and consider more products. Not all brands or products will be compatible with this platform but it will be interesting to watch the entity morph.