First there was e-commerce. Amazon and eBay led the way. This has been followed by thousands of retailers, from Kmart to Delta to 1-800-Flowers to Home Depot, selling billions of dollars of merchandize each year on websites. In those models, an individual company has to promote its e-commerce platform to get people there to buy.
According to audience measurement and tracking firm comScore, currently U.S. retail e-commerce spending went up 14 percent Online retail spending reached $37.5 billion, primarily due to an increase in the number of buyers (up 16 percent), with 70 percent of all Internet users making at least one online purchase. comScore chairman Gian Fulgoni states that almost $1 in every $10 of discretionary spending in the U.S. now occurs online.
But what if a company tapped into the communities where their customers were already on and offered them the same things there? Social Commerce does just that. Simply stated, it is e-commerce on social networking sites.
From the customer’s point of view, what would matter most:
- A half-dozen reviews from people you don’t know?
- A coupon for 10 percent off a product for your first visit to the site?
- Recommendations of twenty of your best friends that bought, use, and love the same product?
Social networking sites are allowing brands to use plug-ins and widgets to connect and encourage customers’ friends to comment, displaying visible discussion threads, thereby creating social shopping experiences that are fueled by word-of-mouth marketing. While e-review sites have driven e-commerce (or prevented it if there are a lot of negative comments about a product or service), the idea of having people you know comment and recommend products they like is the premise of Facebook commerce, also known as f-commerce.
With over 750 million active users on Facebook, there are more potential customers using Facebook than there are logging into eBay and Amazon combined. Some customers may not see Facebook as a purchasing platform yet, but more and more businesses are adding features so customers can browse and/or buy their products on Facebook. By reading this book you will be at the forefront of a huge movement in social media commerce.
This e-book is about how Facebook is transforming into an e-commerce platform. It is written to help you understand what f-commerce means to business owners, large and small. It includes practical examples of brands that have deployed Facebook e-commerce and how you can use f-commerce in your business.
Next week we’ll dive into chapter 1, “Why Do Business on Facebook”
You can order my e-book by clicking here.
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Learn. Share. Grow!
@DrNatalie L. Petouhoff
For more info on my work:
Ebook:Social Media ROI
Social Media ROI YouTube Videos:
Video 1: Building the Business Case for Social Media
Video 2: How to Measure the ROI of Social Media
Video 3: How Social Media Benefits the Whole Company
Book on Monetizing Facebook: Like My Stuff: How To Monetize Your Facebook Fans
Let’s Connect here:
Twitter: @drnatalie
LinkedIn: DrNataliePetouhoff
G+ : Google Plus posts
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