fCommerce – How can your business use Facebook more effectively to increase sales?

What is f-Commerce?

fCommerce is about making it easier for people to buy goods from your business without having to leave the Facebook environment. fCommerce provides a fully functional online shop on you Facebook business page. This includes the ability for customers to choose product size, colour, delivery as well as paying for the goods by secure Credit Card payment – all done on your Facebook page very simply.

The real advantage here is that instead of directing these customers off Facebook to buy your products back on your main company website (through hyperlinks), you instead bring your online shop to Facebook. Many retailers have found that this really facilitates impulse purchases, where they have seen a significant increase in business.

Why is fCommerce important to your business?

• Facebook is here to stay and continues to attract new users every day at a rapid pace.
• There are now 2 million+ Facebook users in Ireland (half the population), 30.5 million+ users in the UK and 750 million worldwide.
• People are spending more and more time on Facebook. In June 2009 US users spent an average of 4 hours 39 minutes per month on Facebook. That increased to 5 hours 46 minutes in August and jumped to more than 7 hours in Jan 2010 – that’s 11.5 minutes every day (source Nielson). The amount of time is higher today and stats are similar for Irish & UK users.
• People feel comfortable / secure in the familiar Facebook environment and will be happier to browse and buy, while remaining in Facebook rather than be directed off to another website.
• You can facilitate impulse purchases easier by having a f-Shop on your business Facebook page.

Because f-Commerce is new, it presents an immediate business opportunity for astute business owners, managers and early market adopters. It is also important to capitalise now on the initial customer excitement and turn fans into customers quickly before Facebook becomes flooded with competitors.

If you would like more information, a free quotation or pricing to design/install an online shop on your Facebook Business

f-Commerce also has a unique

business marketing angle.

A very interesting feature with f-Commerce is the pricing options available to sell your products/services. Remember that the average person on Facebook has 130 friends. So how useful would it be to your business if every customer who bought your product told all of their Facebook friends? 100 customers x 130 friends = 13,000 potential new customers.

• ‘Normal Price’= You can sell you product through your Facebook shop at your normal price.
• ‘Like Price’= Where you sell your product/service through Facebook and offer a small discount for customers who use the ‘Like Price’. This automatically posts a ‘status update’ on the customers’ Facebook page letting friends know that they just bought your product/service thus advertising/endorsing you company. This is likely to reach the friends that they communicate with regularly (but not necessarily all of their friends).
• ‘Share Price = Similar to ‘Like Price’ above however this pushes out a note letting all of their friends know they bought your product/service. They ‘share’ the news with all of their friends.The value of f-Commerce starts to become visible with this immediate, low cost and viral marketing method. This is just one of a number of ways to reach new customers inexpensively through this new and exciting media.

Facebook Shop – Examples

Italian Tour Operator :
Click here to see an example of a Facebook Shop we recently installed for a new Italian tour operator. This allows the business to effortlessly take tour bookings on their Facebook page.

Molly Sims Jewellry:
Click here to see how they use the ‘Like our page for discount pricing”.

Dublin clothes shop – Coze-Di-Roze
Click here where you’ll note a strong call to action to get discount prices.

Coca-Cola Store
Click here to see how a large multi-national presents their shop on Facebook

Asos Clothing
Click here to see how this company with 1.4million fans sell their products from their Facebook page

Delta Airlines
Click here to book flights, check-in online or check a flight status all on their Facebook Page

There are many compelling reasons for companies to use Facebook for business.

If you would like more information, a free quotation or our pricing to design/install an online shop on your Facebook Business page