In the recent years social media have profoundly changed our lives and how we interact with one another and the world around us. Social Networking sites have emerged as a medium for boosting brand recognition and engaging web presence and are embraced by brands both big and small. Facebook has become a favorite platform for building awareness. Online web stores have started having Facebook extensions so that customers could ‘Like’ a product while buying it and can also recommend it to the people in their social circle. This provides an opportunity to engage with existing customers by posting updates regarding the brand on their ‘News Feed’. But what if, you could set up your online shop in Facebook itself so that customers don’t have to leave their preferred platform for shopping?
Yes, with the help of e-commerce applications, you can now open a professional grade storefront on your Facebook page. These F-Commerce applications have all features that one would expect in any conventional e-Commerce platform, be it Content Management, Payment processing, Shipment functionality, Order Management or Analytics & Reporting. Certain applications even allow you to integrate your existing online store with your Facebook storefront eliminating the need for migrating product data. There are numerous F-Commerce software solution providers from which you can select based on your requirements.
A few highly anticipated F-Commerce apps that can help you set up your online store in Facebook :
Payvment
It’s a free app which allows you to open an ecommerce storefront in Facebook. It allows showcasing unlimited number of items and has options for custom categories. Real-time inventory management module is also incorporated in it. It can help you collect payments through its configurable payment gateways for Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Paypal etc. It has analytics to track sales and social data like Likes, comments etc. It supports automatic shipping integration with the USPS, UPS, and FedEx. Within a few hours the store front can be ready to be launched and promoted.
BigCommerce
It offers a Facebook ecommerce solution that lets you add a Shopping tab in your Facebook Business page. Through the tab, Facebook users can browse products and buy through Facebook. Gibson Guitar is one of the noticeable companies who are using BigCommerce for their Facebook store. BigCommerce has different plans starting from 25$ per month to suit your needs based on the number of products, Storage capacity, Login accounts and Google Adwords.
So these F-commerce apps can meet up most of your requirements if you need an online store based on an E-Commerce platform .But according to some recent studies a majority of the people don’t feel safe yet to purchase products or perform financial transactions over a social networking site. Many companies although considering it an option did not move forward due to the limitations faced in customizing the look and feel. But still with the scope of reaching out to millions of Facebook users many business users are finding it an attractive proposition.
Some of the big players having stores in Facebook are:
- Gibson Guitar using BigCommerce
- French connection using Milyoni
- Coca cola using Shop tab
- Unicef using Voik
- Lady gaga using Bravado
