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E-commerce zooms at new online storefronts: Facebook file/ March 9

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By The Drum Team, Editorial

March 9, 2011 | 2 min read

Everyone marvels at Zynga's success, but could regular companies also strike gold with a storefront on Facebook?

Yes, seems to be the answer as business readers told the Chronicle about their Facebook e-commerce experiences.

A CEO at a big e-commerce company said he'd had five meetings with the social network over the past month, and that "all companies are working with Facebook to sell more things on Facebook and do customer support".

Two firms added to the go-go message:

Company No 1, Incipio Technologies, sells iPhone and other gadget cases and peripherals. Conversion rate among shoppers referred by Facebook is 2X the average. The number adding products to a cart is 3X the average.

President Andy Fathollahi said he "would love" Facebook to expand Facebook Credits beyond virtual goods, and into e-commerce. He'd pay 5% per transaction, about the same as PayPal but less than the 30% Facebook charges virtual goods dealers

Company No 2, SoftPrice.com, has set up more than 1,500 Facebook storefronts for retail clients. It charges them on a subscription basis and that includes building a Facebook storefront.

It says those retailers have put $3.78 billion worth of merchandise on Facebook – 7.6 million products in 53,000 categories.

One is top basketball team the Dallas Mavericks. Owner Mark Cuban, says he would also happily pay a 5% fee for Facebook Credits. He added, "You have to be where customers want to buy."

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