Where are You Registered?…Facebook! Collections is the New Facebook Shopping

Getting married? Having a baby? Having a birthday? Updating your wish list? Have you registered on Facebook?  Ok, so there is no official Facebook registry for shopping, but a new feature  is being tested that might change that. Taking their lead from Pinterest, which is currently the 4th largest traffic driver on the web, Facebook is creating a pin style photo display designed to drive sales for retailers. This new feature they are testing is called “Collections“.

Collections is a new way to display product in a pinboard style. A button in the upper corner gives you the option to “want” or “collect” the image instead of simply liking it.  The idea behind wanting or collecting is that you are saying that you more than just like the product, but you are interested in purchasing it or having someone purchase it for you.  After you collect something, it is added to your wishlist (of which you can have many) that can be shared on the time line.

The sales funnel does not stop there! Not only can people collect your products but they can actually buy them.  According to Shopify adding a price to a Pinterest image increases sales by 36%. Facebook is following in their lead and adding a buy link with the price. The link takes you directly to the product listing on the company’s site for easy purchasing.

This could be an amazing tool to help businesses capitalize on the 1 billion Facebook users. However, there is a glaring flaw in this strategy. When you add an item to your collection it is not shared on your timeline with everybody. It is only shared with your friends who are ALSO fans of that retailer. This is meant to encourage pages to increase their network. Seriously? I don’t think any page needs a motivator to want to increase their network. In fact this could be a great tool for accomplishing such a goal. So yet again, the little guys will get to watch the big guys get the pie while they scramble to get a small bite.

Despite the glaring inequity, it does show that Facebook is trying to provide business solutions that will help retailers capitalize on Facebook for more than branding and community and start pushing for direct sales, as well as figuring out a way that may successfully monetize the network.