Robbie Williams launches co-buying to his fans

Pop star Robbie Williams is taking the power of social shopping to his fans.

His fan website, RobbieWilliams.com, is to run a series of co-buys for its online community, using social commerce business BuyaPowa.

Williams’ social community currently numbers three million Facebook fans and one million Twitter followers. From Friday July 20 co-buys of limited edition pieces, commemorative memorabilia and bestsellers from the RobbieWilliams.com shop will be promoted to that community to buy through the BuyaPowa model, which reduces the price of goods as more people sign up to buy.

By encouraging friends from outside the community to buy, fans can reduce the price of goods and even, potentially, buy for free themselves if they bring in the most co-buyers. Sales will be available either through a Facebook app or through a dedicated Robbie Williams BuyaPowa page.

Tim Clark of Robbie Williams’ management, ie:music, said: “We decided to look at social commerce as a way to bring together our existing e-commerce store and Robbie’s huge community of fans, from both his official site and his social profiles. Co-buying is a great model because it’s fun and at the same time empowers fans to come together to buy popular and collectable items at affordable prices, they’re the ones in charge of driving the price down. Robbie has an extremely active community and co-buying is the perfect way to engage with them.”

The news comes just a week after BuyaPowa celebrated its first anniversary. Launched in 2011 by Gideon Lask, the social commerce company aims to harness the buying power of communities of people through a model that it “turns customers into marketers and rewards brand advocates”. The site provides a suite of social commerce tools that are designed to generate leads and drive loyalty. To date BuyaPowa says it has engaged more than 25,000 consumers on behalf of the companies it works with.