Facebook presently knows everything about you. The social network knows who you are, who your friends are, what you like, what you eat, what you share, where you work and what your hobbies are. This is a great chance for them to try persuade you into buying some stuff, as they are able to select and deliver to you exactly what you may be interested in purchasing. Social media and e-commerce will most likely be brought together somewhere in the future, particularly when it comes to Facebook and its almost one and a half billion active monthly users.
The social network has already started to try out “shops” or mini e-commerce initiatives on Facebook pages that will enable businesses and brands to promote and sell their products to reach out directly to potential buyers.
The past efforts of the social media giant have involved third party advertising and integration with the already existing shopping channels. Facebook will soon add the “buy” button functionality to its pages and it will most likely not take a share of the sales in the near future but it hopes that the presence of shoppers will increase revenue by attracting increasing numbers of advertisers.
Facebook will guide its users throughout the entire shopping experience, starting with product discovery to checkout. Businesses will be able to display their products directly on the page. According to Emma Rodgers, Facebook’s product marketing manager, there is a number of shops that is already piloting the program.
On the mobile platforms, Facebook will be displaying the shops underneath the standard toolbar and the “About” section. For the initial stages of the initiative, there will not be a search component embedded.
Facebook is expanding its area of activity, becoming a sort of all-in-one platform. It’s been a long time since the social media giant has ceased to be only a social platform meant to encourage interaction at a virtual level. Now the giant is focusing on expanding its area of activity and does important steps in that direction. Online transactions are allowed directly from the messenger box, online ads on Facebook are already history and now we have a new “merger”, with the social media giant entering the world of e-commerce.
“There was a lot of anticipation that Facebook would turn into a new destination, a store, a place where people would shop”, Sucharita Mulpur, a Forrester Research Analyst openly declares.
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