Almost a quarter of shoppers (23 per cent) say they do more than half of all their shopping online, according to a survey from BagThat.com. On average, UK shoppers do 32 per cent of all their shopping online, but when asked how much they believe they will do in future, the amount increases to 45 per cent overall.

BagThat.com is a new concept in online social shopping officially launching in the UK today.

The British public has already embraced online shopping as a concept with only 10 per cent of people saying they don’t ever do it and this falls to just six per cent in the 18 to 34-year-old age range. This is highest with people in London with 29 per cent saying they do more than half online compared to only 18 per cent in the North of England and Scotland.

BagThat has the backing of High Street brand names Samsung, Halfords, mydeco.com, Rush Hair & Beauty, TheGadget4U, Brook Taverner, Stewart Golf, and the Real Wine Company. It is a new virtual store that uses the power of the social network to benefit consumers and suppliers alike – allowing customers to bid or ‘haggle’ for a wide range of products and services.

Instead of naming a firm price, people can choose what they are willing to pay. The more people that get involved and bid on an item via social networking, the lower the price a product can sell for and the better the discount.

The BagThat vision, in a cross between an ‘auction’ and a ‘group buying’ model, is to bring a mainstream retail channel to market that truly offers both consumers and suppliers the opportunity to take full advantage of social network buying power. The model – in effect a simple volume/discount principle - is intuitive and highly effective.

The concept of social shopping is gaining momentum in the UK with more than a quarter of under 34-year-olds sharing a purchase they have made on social networking sites such as Facebook or Twitter and 65 per cent more likely to make to purchase if they receive a recommendation on social media.

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