When they first appear, Facebook shops used to annoy me. But lately, due to the characteristics I will mention down the page, I have grown to accept them and even started to prefer these shops to shop online compare to buying from ebay or any other eCommerce shops.
No, I am not talking about people promoting their shops or online shops on facebook.
Using Facebook to promote your business means you already have a shopfront (offline, online or both). Your main purpose of talking about or post photos/videos of your products on facebook is to direct your friends to your main shopfront. Examples as follow:
Despite the name, do visit my friend’s hotel in Bogor: http://www.hotelpapaho.com
For cute and truly original t-shirts, visit another friend’s online shop: http://virtualonmars.spreadshirt.com
Facebook shops are people who primarily sells goods and services via the internet. They do their business by:
- upload loads of photos of their products online,
- tag a lot of friends who may be interested (or who may have friends that will be interested in their products)
- post product descriptions on facebook (underneath the album/photos)
- communicate with their shopper on facebook via private message (pm), walls or comments
- receive order on face book (again via pm, walls and comments)
- getting their shopper to pay them either via bank transfer or paypal
- receive feedback and testimonials on facebook
Some examples:
I actually didn’t know who owns Godiva Shoppe. It came out on my stream because my friend was tagged on one of her items.
My friend runs a yummy facebook shop selling the best quality hand-picked bags, shoes, wallets, women’s accessories at cheaper price compare to some eCommerce shops out there. I am not releasing her shop’s name until I can get a confirmation that this is not privately facebook only 
. If I got her permission, then I’ll update the blog.
Unfortunately, unless I know you in real-life (or if you’re not my boss or boss’ boss), you won’t be able to get into my friends list on facebook.
At the moment, I found that most facebook shops are owned by Asians (although this is possibly because 80% of my friends on facebook are asians.. LOL). They are mostly selling clothes, bags, shoes, accessories, baby products, skin care, TUPPERWARES (OMG MAX!! *roll eyes*). There are a couple of shops popping out selling electronics and services (i.e. art/illustrations) but mainly I come across the aforementioned items.
I guess the main advantage facebook shops have over other online communication (apart from zero cost set up) is Breaking the Trust Barrier and Lightning Speed “Referrals.”
TRUST
The main issue with shopping online is TRUST, not whether or not the products (clothes/shoes) will fit you or is as described. People are getting savvier shopping online.
- Clothes or Shoes dont fit? Sell them onwards or donate them.
- Tupperware’s broken when received? Return them to sender.
- Disappointed with the product? Tough! I’ll give it to someone.
- Change your mind? Don’t really need the item? Happens all the time even in real life and we still shop.
However, people don’t like getting SCAMMED. They don’t want to spend money if they thought you or your shop can not be trusted. With facebook, the shop owners sells to their “friends.” They also tend to communicate about the product openly on walls or on comment boards. So the rest of your friends (read: prospective shopper) can see how you do business with fellow friends. PMs are only used when communicating about money, shipping, deals, special discount, etc.
So your shoppers really get to know you and if you’re likeable, they will buy from you.
REFERRAL
Facebook gives you an amazing marketing capability via
- photo tagging,
- like (unlike),
- become a fans,
- comments, and
- wall posts.
All these will appear on your friend’s feed/dashboard/activity stream. This feed will appear and be read by your friends AND your friends’ friends. These friends of your friends may then become your friends too. It’s VIRAL!!! and INSTANT!
(AND IT’S BORDERING SPAM! which is why facebook shops used to annoy me. They are all over my dashboard. Though, I have learnt to embrace the trend now).
Think about this…
If your shop (or you) have 100 friends and you tag these friends on a product. Each one of your friends have 100 friends. Suddenly your products have the potential to be read by 100 x 100 people = 10,000 people (note: 100 friends is actually underestimating). I actually know a number of people who have 500+ friends on their list.
Also, imagine if you are selling clothes. One of your shop’s fan is very popular and she is admired for her taste by her friends. VOILA!! You suddenly have a legitimate and credible promotion.. FREE OF CHARGE! This person is classified as A-class buyer. If you have a facebook shop, it’s worth getting into this person’s good book.
One of the standard features of facebook photo (albums) is Tagging. Tagging is originally designed to mark people’s on the photo. However, in facebook shops, you can use the tag feature to:
- Tag who has bought your products (give credibility to your products, and if the buyer is a A-class buyer, that’s extra promotion)
- Tag people who may like your products
- Tag a person whose friends may like that specific products
- Tag yourself so your friends can see the items too
Remember all these facilities from facebook is FREE. The users are global so you have big international market here.
Another thing to remember is social media integration. If you’re IT savvy or social media savvy you can cross promote to youtube, twitter, vimeo, plurk, and many others. Then the world is truly the oyster of your facebook shops.
Note: everything is against me blogging today. My internet connection kept dropping, my desktop froze (swapped to netbook midway), then my browser on my netbook froze (swap to another browser).. THANK GOD for wordpress autosave.. or this blog will never happen. SO.. I can’t be bothered spell checking or check what I wrote up there. I am sure you all can understand my Engrish!
Adios..!
p.s. To all of my friends who were featured here and for whatever reason want me to take your facebook photo/text/stream down, please let me know. I’ll remove it pronto!
