Among many other things, Facebook is extending its reach to the field of e-commerce. This venture into e-commerce is tagged by the Facebook company as F-commerce. The social network, which has 1.44 billion active users every month, is reported to be testing how users can sell and purchase products using Facebook pages.
The social networking site is bringing a shop section to Facebook Pages, a line of pages designed for businesses to showcase themselves. They are essentially mini websites and online stores. According to Buzzfeed, the new section has added the 'Buy' button among its more specialised features.
Facebook product marketing manager Emma Rodgers told Buzzfeed News, "With the shop section on the page, we're now providing businesses with the ability to showcase their products directly on the page."
The company has not divulged details on what businesses are involved in the testing of the new section. It has claimed that it will not have a share on the users' earnings, and it hopes to provide an avenue for businesses to have more revenues. Facebook will benefit from the shop section if it attracts advertisers.
Many small businesses around the world have their own Facebook page. "Like us on Facebook" has been a line for most of them to expand their promotional tactics from a simple poster to a more informative avenue. And then, with the resourcefulness of some online entrepreneurs, the like button has been optimised, with page admins of businesses posting photos of their wares on the pages, and asking customers to click on like to confirm their purchase or order.
Other pages provide direct links to the businesses' websites. Facebook pages have long been known to have potential as an avenue for lucrative product sales. The social networking site, after all, accounts for much of people's online activities, on mobile and PC. As such, making purchases while on Facebook is anything but far-fetched.
How Facebook fares as an e-commerce platform is still not proven by statistics. But judging from how retailers use it as a venue to sell and promote at least proves its viability and popularity. Recently, Facebook has introduced MoneyPenny, its virtual assistant which will be incorporated to Messenger. The highlighted function of the aptly-named concierge is to help users buy things and make other transactions online.
With that, F-commerce can be expected to go beyond the social networking site. With business pages already propagated in the online selling field and all the additional developments the social network has come up with, it will be interesting to see how Facebook can do even better on F-commerce.
