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Thursday, May 26, 2011

Social Commerce: The Case for and Against Facebook Commerce: Part 1

There is a lot of buzz around social commerce. Retailers are trying different strategies to get hold of shoppers. Till now, retailers in India see social commerce as a customer engagement and retention tool rather than customer acquisition. The numbers (Q2 2010 survey) below will explain you why:

 Metrics
Average Facebook metrics
Click through rate
1%
Conversion rate
2%
Average friends per account
132
Average impressions per post
50


In sum, the effective conversion rate is less than 0.02%.

So how are retailers utilizing social websites like Facebook and Twitter? As I see it, there are 3 ideas that retailers are experimenting with:

1. Ads, creating stores (yes, a full fledged mini store on facebook!), fan pages, running deals and promotions and peer to peer contacts within facebook. Some retailers are organizing trivia quiz, "do you know" stuff, "answer a question and win an all expense paid trip to the moon (no mention of return tickets here!)".

Take a look at these promotions taken from facebook.








And, if you are lucky to win a contest like this one -


You will be a -


But don't be too happy yet because you may end up asking a question -


Ok, enough of fun and back to business.

BigCommerce brings the products from your catalog right into your facebook page! If you want to sell on Facebook, check out this application: http://www.facebook.com/payvment

In short, everybody wants to ride this big boat called social commerce. It seems they all have a strategy, but somehow, it feels a big chaos.  Let us see which way the wind blows.

Have you  been bitten by the social commerce bug yet and want to go beyond? Are there more smarter ways  to engage your customers? More discussion on idea number 2 and 3 in the days to follow. You can get a notification when the next blog article is published by submitting the "Follow by email" form below.

Tags: Social commerce, sell on facebook, Ecommerce facebook twitter,  utilize facebook, social media, promote business on facebook.

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