Available online at www.sciencedirect.com ScienceDirect Procedia Engineering 165 ( 2016 ) 1556 – 1562 15th International scientific conference “Underground Urbanisation as a Prerequisite for Sustainable Development” Social commerce as a driver of sustainable development of the information economy of the city Evgenia Oleynikovaa,*, Yuliya Zorkina aInstitute of Economics, Far Eastern State Transport University, Khabarovsk 680021, Russia Abstract The purpose of this article is to determine notion of social commerce, find out state of social commerce in Russia and to define its place in the city economy. Social commerce implies use of Web 2.0 technologies and in some way is similar to e-commerce. This article compares these two types of activity, shows the importance of social commerce for information economy and elicits special features of this phenomenon in Russia. The authors research competitive structure of some segments of markets in the Russian Far East and determine some features of distribution logistics of collective buying in Russian Far East. © 20162016 The The Authors. Authors. Published Published by byElsevier Elsevier Ltd. LtdThis. is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license Peer(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/-review under responsibility of the scientific). committee of the 15th International scientific conference “Underground UrbPeer-reviewanisation under as a responsibility Prerequisite offor the Sustainable scientific committee Development of the. 15th International scientific conference “Underground Urbanisation as a Prerequisite for Sustainable Development Keywords: Information economy; Sustainable development; Social commerce;Social media; Collective buying; Group buying. 1. Introduction The urban economy is a subsystem of the national economy and is determined by the type of its major limiting factor. The modern era of the information economy presents the dominant and most promising type of economic development. * Corresponding author. Tel.: +7-914-773-8853. E-mail address: [email protected] 1877-7058 © 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). Peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the 15th International scientific conference “Underground Urbanisation as a Prerequisite for Sustainable Development doi: 10.1016/j.proeng.2016.11.893 Evgenia Oleynikova and Yuliya Zorkin / Procedia Engineering 165 ( 2016 ) 1556 – 1562 1557 The information economy could be defined as a system aimed at obtaining information, its analysis and use for the production of economic goods with high informational capacity to meet the needs of society and the generation of reactions to preserve, strengthen and transform the system itself [1]. Information economics as a science studies the economic activity of the person, which includes extensive use of electronic technologies in the processes of social production, distribution and consumption of public goods. Internet with new media and social media serve as information and communication base of information economy. Here we are to note that information resource is a necessary but not sufficient factor for the effective implementation of innovative economy based on knowledge and their intellectual media - high-level specialists who able to turn ideas into innovative new products and effectively create and use competitive technologies [2]. And that means also shift to new level of Internet development implemented in Web 2.0 technologies with new role of people in economy and society in general. Despite of the short history of the information economy there is understanding of its importance on most levels of state and municipal authorities. Even medium-sized municipalities devote their attention to necessity of informational component in their strategic plans for the development of a range of aspects of the information economy. Taking strategic plan for sustainable development of Khabarovsk city as an example we can see that practically all the main directions could be linked with the evolution of information economy. The plan is intended to enhance the modernization and innovation processes of the city economy, creation of favourable conditions for the population, shifting from quantitative to qualitative, comfortable and accessible conditions of public services based on innovative technologies, elaboration of unified city Internet space, creation of new mechanisms of interaction with the use of electronic technology. All these alongside with the development of logistics system must facilitate transition to modern state of economy and sustainable development of the city. Sustainable development of urban economy requires balanced development of its economic, technological and social components using self-employment mechanisms and increasing the level of satisfaction of the diverse needs of the population. 2. Research Methods In this study an ethnographic approach as a representative of non-positivistic methodology was used. This approach involves accustomization to the subcultural context and is long-term by nature, this is the method of the first choice in the study of hardly accessible communities. Within the limits of this approach classical ethnographical tool in the form of participant observation was employed for the research. The observation was carried out in the natural context of social environment by personal way and was semi-open and semi-structured by nature. The results of personal observations were complemented with audit of reserves method at online-marketplaces and so called off-line pickup points. Estimate-talk-Estimate – variation of Delphi method – was applied to elicit volumes of social commerce operations. In our field studies we observed and took part in social commerce services including its models like group buying, social shopping and purchase sharing [3] as well as in specific to Russian reality forms identified through retrospective analysis. Retrospective analysis has allowed us to establish the specificity and the genesis of social commerce in Russia. The observations were carried out from August 2008 to September 2016. Our research is mainly localized in the Far Eastern Federal district, namely the cities of Khabarovsk and Vladivostok. Some aspects of this phenomenon were studied on the example of social commerce in Moscow, St. Petersburg and Novosibirsk. These cities were chosen to maintain wide geographical coverage and because of their metropolitical value. The high prevalence of this phenomenon, the high user involvement in practices of social commerce and the high level of Internet penetration in these regions appropriate to the requirements of the sampling was also taken into account. Among the most frequently accessed web locations in the making of the research we can outline the following resources (to name a few): khabmama.ru, vladmama.ru, sibmama.ru, 100sp.ru, sp.babyblog.ru, sptovarov.ru, groupon.ru (rebranded to “frendi.ru” in 2016), biglion.ru, kupikupon.ru, irecommend.ru, otzovik.ru, livemaster.ru, scladchik.com, molotok.ru, etc. 1558 Evgenia Oleynikova and Yuliya Zorkin / Procedia Engineering 165 ( 2016 ) 1556 – 1562 3. Etymology and definition of social commerce Despite the explosive development with the impressive pace and scope, the concept of social commerce (or s- commerce for short) has not been formed yet and one of the reasons is the brevity of existence of this socio- economic phenomenon, it has just one decade history. For the first time the term "social commerce" was introduced by Internet giant Yahoo on November 14, 2005 with the meaning of internet platforms system for people to come together in order to give and receive advices from people they trust, to search for goods and services and then buy them. Experts have not agreed yet with definite scientific determination of "social commerce" term and its subject area. Neither the economic nor the legal science has even defined the conceptual and categorical framework of this notion. To understand the essence of the phenomenon we are to turn to its etymology. The term "social commerce" is formed by attaching the word "social" from "social media" notion to the word "commerce" from the concept of "electronic commerce". Social media can be defined as set of internet-applications based on Web 2.0 for user content generation and sharing. Social media are part of new media, which include internet, computer games, digital films and photography, mobile technologies, etc. Social media include different types of online interactive geographically distributed means such as social networking sites, blogs and microblogs, forums, podcasts, photo and video hosting, file stores, recommenders, file hosting services, virtual games etc. In social media users can make their own pages, join to communities, communicate and share information. Every new Web 2.0 application has its own characteristics offering new opportunities for the users with new accessible and attractive resources. To understand the phenomenon of social media we are to turn to the characteristics of Web 2.0. This term was proposed by T. O'Reilly in comparison with the previous Internet era, known as Web 1.0 [4]. Web 2.0 space implies systems, which are becoming more efficient with the number of users growth. Web 2.0 emergence marks the transition from the model of information availability to the model of social availability, from the reader position to the