FB Storefront Solutions Explored
Social media has changed
everything. Not only has
it improved the lives of
more than a billion users
worldwide, but it’s also had
a profound effect on the
business world.
Arguably, Internet retailers are enjoying the
biggest rewards as a result of social media.
Social commerce — the selling of products
through social media — provides merchants
with yet another avenue to expand
their businesses. And although many different
tactics such as promoting or advertising
on social networks can fall into this
emerging category, merchants can take the
strategy a step further by selling directly on
these sites through virtual storefronts.
Facebook, of course, provides merchants
with the biggest opportunities in the social commerce space, and
there are already more than 50,000 Facebook stores with more
popping up every day. But how exactly does a retailer make the
transition from e-commerce to f-commerce?
Five More Ways to Sell on Facebook: The opportunities for selling product on Facebook hardly end here. Discover more social commerce and Facebook storefront solutions such as Ecwid, Milyoni, ShopVisible and more here at Website Magazine.
Know the benefits and challenges
Merchants should first understand the benefits and challenges
that are associated with engaging in the production and promotion
of social storefronts.
The most significant benefit of a Facebook store is the possibility
for broader audience reach. Your Facebook “fans” may
be talking about your brand already, but what if they had the opportunity
to browse and share products directly from your store?
Their product “likes” would then be publicized on their
Facebook walls, which in turn would be shared with all of their
friends. Since the average Facebook user has 130 friends, a notification
about five sold products could potentially reach 650
new customers.
A social storefront is also a logical extension of your brand
according to Jason Weaver, CEO of enterprise social marketing
software provider Shoutlet.
“It seems as if having a Facebook page now is synonymous
with having a website five years ago,” says Weaver. “So brands are rushing to make that experience as complete as
their own website.”
But aside from the obvious advantages that come from virally
spreading your products across the Web, there are also
quite a few challenges still associated with social storefronts.
For instance, keeping your catalog up to date can be time consuming.
There is also the difficulty in continuously coming
up with interactive and valuable ideas that will provide
your customers with reasons to come back to your brand’s
page, rather than just lazily pushing your products into their
newsfeeds — which will most likely have the opposite effect
and keep them off your page.
In order to make your f-commerce store successful, it is
important to establish goals before choosing a solution and a
strategy. For instance, do you want your social storefront to
simply create viral buzz around your products, or do you want
it to be the go-to commerce destination for your customers?
It will also prove useful to know how those goals can be
satisfied with available solutions on the market.
Get acquainted with the vendors
All social commerce platforms are not made the same. Just like
any other solution, service or platform, every social commerce
solution has its own, unique bells and whistles.
For example, Facebook commerce platform Payvment allows
all transactions to take place entirely on Facebook (some
solutions redirect customers to the merchant’s e-commerce
page). Additionally, the platform also includes features like its
Payvment Shopping Mall (pictured opposite page), which is
basically a directory of all its customers’ stores.
The Payvment solution also features social sharing options,
analytics tracking, product management solutions, orders and
payment support and store setup. The platform provides three
service levels — free, premium and platinum solutions — which
are differentiated by the number of stores and administrators on each account, type of support, as well as the means by which a seller
can promote items to their fans (manual or automatic).
ShopIgniter offers another suite of products for f-commerce.
This solution also allows fans to make purchases within Facebook,
which, according to Alan Wizemann, chief product officer
at ShopIgniter, gives brands and retailers a competitive sales edge.
ShopIgniter also features real-time inventory checks, social
rewards, exclusive-offer technology and a social product-launch
feature, which creates momentum for new products by offering
fans and followers exclusive early access.
“The Facebook newsfeed is an excellent channel to offer impulse
products, time- or inventory-limited items or highly desirable
promotional products,” says Wizemann. “We have taken
extra care to ensure that our software delivers a secure and elegant
experience for our customers’ end-consumers.”
A third solution, Shoutlet, takes a different approach entirely
when it comes to in-stream purchasing. This platform’s Shop and
Share feature takes customers back to the merchant’s website instead
of enabling purchases within Facebook, but this is done for
a specific reason according to CEO Jason Weaver.
“We found that our enterprise clients have already made huge
investments in their e-commerce sites,” says Weaver. “So they are
looking to monetize those existing systems rather than paying
another vendor a transaction fee.”
The Shoutlet platform enables merchants to list products,
drive purchases and encourage social shopping by letting users
share on more than 100 social sites. Merchants can schedule upcoming
promotions in advance, as well as display current and
sale prices for consumer comparison shopping, which also drives
social sharing during promotions.
Keep it social
It is important when creating an f-commerce store to remember
that Facebook is still a social media site. Even though merchants
can leverage the social network to sell goods and services, social
storefronts should not disrupt the purpose of the website, which
is to connect people and foster relationships.
In order to make sure that your social storefront does not disrupt
your Facebook page, merchants should keep their Facebook
pages informative, and with a focus on providing value for visitors.
The application shop tabs, along with product promotions,
should be enough of an incentive for fans to explore, purchase
and share products on their own.


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