What is 'crowdsumption' and what effect is it having on the way we shop? Fiona Harkin reports

What happens when the much-vaunted democracy of the internet meets the much-derided elitism of the style set? A new consumer phenomenon, of course. Called "crowdsumption", it is e-commerce based on user recommendation and peer approval. Put another way, it's Facebook for fashion.

This new category of e-commerce, "social shopping", aims to combine two favourite online activities: shopping and social networking In China, a form of crowdsumption called "team-buying", or tuangou, has become a phenomenon, with groups of individuals banding together to barter with a seller and bring prices down. The concept has also gained a foothold in the US, with sites such as NetHaggler enabling individual buyers to group together and force lower prices from a wide range of retailers.

On ThisNext.com, one of a new breed of websites that seeks to connect independent-minded shoppers with hard-to-find products, you can sit back and watch its strangely hypnotic Activity Map, featuring a stream of successive speech bubbles popping up all over the world that offer realtime information on who's looking at what across the globe.

Right now, a visitor from Seoul could be looking at a vintage mink coat as recommended by an opinionated fashion blogger in Los Angeles, while three people add a Juicy Couture JetSet Charm bracelet to their "shopcasts" (a broadcast of their favourite items claiming kinship with a podcast).

The Japanese website Fashion- Walker is an innovative e-commerce/ publishing hybrid marrying a series of high-quality online magazines with easily accessible shopping portals and a series of real-time catwalk shows from which users can instantly buy an outfit. It's not a niche site - monthly sales have hit ¥400m (€2.6m), according to retail research group Japan Consuming - and its sister site, StyleWalker, is riding this success, offering a social networking and shopping service with an avatar facility that allows users to dress a customised digital doll. As for social shopping site Kaboodle.com, it was recently acquired for $30m by the interactive media arm of Hearst, publisher of glossy magazines such as Harper's Bazaar.

"People buy on a discovery basis," says Gordon Gould, cofounder of LA-based ThisNext.

"Most of the time they don't know what they're going to buy when they start looking. Social shopping gives power back to the consumers by recognising that everyone can be a connoisseur and giving them a platform for contribution and discovery." It's the birth of a new "referral economy", according to Dawn Bebe, managing director of Osoyou.com, a UK social shopping site for women. Bebe calls Osoyou a "beautiful, upscale" platform similar to printed magazines such as Grazia and Elle.

Osoyou doesn't sell products, but its unique selling point is that users can create a shopping profile and bookmark their favourite items into a digital wardrobe to be shared with friends, while reading blogs and checking out other users' recommendations.

Bebe has minted another catchy term for this - "me-tail".

"It's a hybrid between media and retail, which also neatly encapsulates the Me Plc phenomenon," she explains, referring to the net narcissism spawned by the Web 2.0 generation of everyman blogs and websites.

ThisNext's Gould adds: "For brands, tapping into the social web will become far more relevant than advertising online and through search engines, which don't provide the emotional and visual platform that social shopping does." Bebe is confident the luxury sector shouldn't be alienated and that social shopping has an important role to play in the industry. "Many brands are nervous of online as a retail outlet but they can't duck out of the web," she says, noting that many luxury good companies have one thing in common: online is their fastest growing retail channel.

Emily Ling, sales manager at 20ltd.com, a luxury goods site selling limited edition pieces (a Hellcat motorbike recently sold for £40,000) says: "Luxury companies are realising that e-commerce is fundamental to growing their business in that at least 90 per cent of their clientele or potential clientele uses the internet on a daily basis. They do not necessarily have time to shop." Ling adds that the ability to browse is key: "The internet offers the consumer an opportunity to search and choose the product at their own leisure - time being the ultimate luxury - and through this, fancy e-tailing has boomed, as, naturally, the consumer wants what he sees.

Shopping in this fashion is set to evolve even more in the future." Peer recommendation and consumers who want what they see others are buying online could well influence this evolution.

"Brands know that word of mouth is the best way to generate interest and the image conscious brands should seek out those social shoppers who can be their best brand evangelists," says Gould. Don't think of it as following the herd, think of it as the wisdom of the masses.

Cool-hunters stalk the net

Every styleconscious consumer can now be a coolhunting fashion editor, thanks to the internet. At Buyma, a Japanese site similar to eBay, individuals become trendsetters by buying hip products and hardtofind fashion to sell on. They are rated not on reliability but on how hip their offering is. Fashionsavvy web surfers have a bookmark folder full of fashion blogs packed with refreshing opinions and cult followings, while style stars are hooking up on fashion networking site Iqons.

The internet also allows instant access to the seasonal catwalk shows via public access sites.

The catwalks are traditionally a chance for editors to preview trends six months ahead of the season and to plan how best to present these to the consumer.

but all that began to change in 1999 when Anna Wintour, editor of American Vogue, sent a letter to the big international designers, notifying them that images from their catwalk shows would be appearing on sister site Style.com.

The democratisation of fashion has reached its pinnacle on the net, the street has become the new catwalk, and everyone can see what the world is wearing.

Beautifully shot photos on The Sartorialist capture the impeccably dressed; StreetPeeper logs the coolest global looks; and FaceHunter admits only the hip, quirky or beautiful. Having a good hair day? Post a shot of yourself on StyleMob or ShareYourLook and see if the world agrees. Falling head over heels with your new shoes? Spread the love on StyleHive or StyleFeeder. With its "Shop, Watch and Share" layout, Condé Nast is ahead of the rest with ShopVogue.TV, launched in collaboration with Vogue's US edition in September. It offers snappy video content and encourages viewers to "Share your Style" by uploading photos of their favourite outfits or items.

For those unsure about where to start tracking the latest trends online, head to UglyOutfitsNYC, a fantastically cruel yet compulsively addictive stream of street shots detailing exactly what not to wear.