Facebook “Collections”, the feature claimed to be “unrelated” to Pinterest can be beneficial for your business. Collections allows retailers to add “Wishlist”, “Collect”, and “Add” buttons to products in their newsfeed posts.
Big ecommerce sites like Amazon and Google are the real targets of Facebook Collections. The second test of the feature was performed in December and has now become a product search engine with over one billion users.
The Advantages:
Retailers are benefiting from Facebook Collections. When a product is added to the user’s wishlist, the “Add” button changes to “Buy” button, tempting users to make a purchase.
But, how are less tangible products like an AC repair or plumbing service going to be benefited with Collections? A service provider can add images to its company’s Collections page, which can be shared by everyone. It all depends on how flexible settings and options of Collections are.
The Limitations:
In Pinterest, users can pin and repin an image. But Collections allow users to click on the product and add it to their wishlist. An overdose of commercialism doesn’t work in social media.
A service company can share commercial and non-commercial pictures on Pinterest, posting a link back to the company’s website. But Collections doesn’t have this option. There’s no link generation and users will be directly taken to “buy product”.
Instead of charging affiliate fees or revenue shares, Facebook prefers to sell profile ads that will increase the business page likes. Which means, a business needs a large number of likes to get benefited from Collections.
My guess is that Facebook Collections can be more profitable for product-selling businesses. The greatest advantage Facebook has over Pinterest is that users see their friends buying or wishing for a product, which is often more influential.
What do you guys think?