Is Facebook The Next Big Shopping Platform?
December 21, 2009 by Pablo Palatnik
Facebook, like many other social networking websites, has been trying to find a way to monetize its millions of users for sometime now. Little by little, they are finding ways to find that revenue from different forms of advertising. The latest news to come out is shopping through facebook streams which WSJ reports on. The limited, an online retailer of womens apparel, accessories, etc will start listing its most popular items on Facebook streams.
"People who have signed up to be Facebook “fans” of the women’s apparel retailer will receive a status update in their news feeds offering them a special 30% discount offer on its infinity scarf. Then, if they want, Facebook fans can buy the product right from that feed page, sometimes known as the wall–all the way through entering their credit card details and shipping address.
The sales messages will only appear in the feeds of people who have already signed up to be fans of the brand, or who have friends that decide to share the offer with them.
It’s one of the most direct attempts yet to make Facebook a platform for sales, not just advertising and marketing. Brands have previously used Facebook to run ads, set up fan pages–and even to sell products on a separate tab on their fan pages. But this is the first time commerce has been inserted directly into the the heart of Facebook, says Resource Interactive, the marketing agency that came up with the approach."
If all the brands, that you sign up to on a FAN PAGE being using Facebook streams to sell its most popular items, now you can have personalized shopping at your finger tips and the steps to purchase a product, will literally be ONE click. In online marketing, how many clicks it takes for a user to get to the product they want and make that purchase is crucial. This makes Facebook a ONE click platform away from shopping. If they go in this direction, it wouldn't be surprising if Facebook, in a short period of time, decides to actually allow brands and ecommerce retailers to build profiles and give them a shopping cart platform to sell their products and charge fees. Then they can also join forces with PayPal, Google Checkout, Amazon Payments, or make one of their own and capitalize on fees. The opportunities are endless with online retail for Facebook and they know it.
