Usher Lieberman, TheFind: Leveraging Social Data

Building a persuasive retail experience is not just about presenting the customer with a final product, rather it is also about discovery, browsing, serendipity, and social interaction. Speaking at PSFK CONFERENCE SAN FRANCISCO, Usher Lieberman of TheFind spoke about how online retailers must strive to build better shopping experiences based on these ideas. As part of this, he believes that the traditional search bar does not provide an immersive enough shopping experience to the consumer, as it only serves to connect them directly with their search terms without providing any inspiration along the way. On the other side of the online experience there is social media, which is highly immersive, personal, and interactive. At TheFind, the two come together to create a social and enjoyable online shopping experience.

Over 170 million product pages in North America have like buttons attached to them, allowing users to mark a product they find interesting. By using this data of ‘likes,’ TheFind pulls together a unique catalogs of goods, composed either of top rated products, or of products liked by people in your online social network. This data can also be leveraged to offer unique offers and deals targeted at exactly the right consumers. Overall, the service provided by TheFind seeks to combine the best of both the online and offline shopping experiences.