Setting Up Shop on Facebook

By Ken Lane

Storefronts That Transition to a Main Website
ShopTab's application lets retailers build Facebook storefronts that begin the shopping experience on Facebook but continue it on the merchant's main website.

"With a growing number of Facebook fans, we figured for a modest monthly fee, what have we got to lose," says Anneliese Valdes, director of customer service for Madison, Wis.-based CobraHead, a niche gardening "hard goods" manufacturer and marketer that uses the ShopTab application. "It's easy to use, requiring just a brief product description and link to the product page on your own site. We've had enough activity to date to warrant loading up the rest of our product offerings."

On a larger scale, Lands' End expanded its marketing efforts for Cyber Monday this past holiday season to include a contest for its Facebook fans and a Twitter-only promotion. Lands' End used the occasion to announce the launch of its new Facebook and mobile Lands' End shops.

J.C. Penney last year launched a fully integrated Facebook e-commerce application powered by Usablenet under the "Shop" tab on its Facebook page. Consumers now have the ability to add items to a cart, check out, edit and remove items from their cart, specify shipping address, ship to store, and pay with a credit card all from its Facebook page.

ShopTab lets Facebook fan pages display a storefront, but once a user clicks to view more about an item on the tab, they're taken to the retailer's main website. Usablenet keeps the user on Facebook. ShopTab is a Facebook application that any small boutique owner can implement, while Usablenet's tool is better suited for larger, global companies, as functionality includes extending features, functionality and information contained on clients' websites to customers wherever they are, including via mobile phones, mobile applications, tablet devices and more. Each method has its pros and cons.

Pros: ShopTab's Facebook storefront allows merchants to quickly transition the shopping experience to their main e-commerce site. It can list a few SKUs on a Facebook storefront to entice shoppers to continue the shopping experience on the brand's e-commerce site — and perhaps add to their shopping cart. Low cost, easy to use.

Cons: Some consumers don't like to be taken to another site to complete a purchase. It feels like phishing is taking place. That doesn't inspire trust the way a self-contained Facebook shop would.

The Bottom Line
With so many people spending so much time on Facebook today, ignore the social networking site at your own peril.

The best way to integrate Facebook into your marketing mix is to keep one foot in the social space and one on your website. Social sites haven't yet progressed to where all e-commerce orders can be transacted on them.

Ken Lane is president and founder of direct marketing consultancy Hathaway & Lane Direct. Reach Ken at klane@hathawayandlance.com.