Facebook pioneered the revolution of social media networking and achieved spectacular success by the simple means of providing a place for people to share the important moments of their lives with their friends. The platform has made it possible for people across the globe to establish and nurture relationships on a grand scale. It is only natural that this same platform offers people a way for people to make money, by letting others know about their products and services and thus opening a totally new way to sell online.
To facilitate this, many software tools are now in use, and are available for vendors of all sizes. Facebook Store applications or apps, as they are most widely known, give the needed interface to present the features and images of your products to the world right on the pages of Facebook. Most of these apps provide an easy means of presenting the product in a very short period.
Some storefront apps offer development tools that help you to get your products and services to the attention of millions of users on Facebook by offering tools to impress your fans and enable sharing among their wider circle of friends. You will get the online equivalent of “word-of-mouth” marketing by sharing and liking of the products. You can give exclusive offers to loyal fans and motivate them to talk more, spread the good word, and come back for more. These apps offer a complete marketing strategy and what you are establishing is a fully qualified e-commerce site with the advantage of a social media format, which offers unparalleled marketing potential.
Other storefront apps offer the ability for users to create Facebook fan page stores. In simple to use procedures, the users set their welcome page, set up the product details, and catalog along with some images of the products. The purchasers shop on Facebook but complete the purchase on a different page—a company website or third party site like Ebay or Amazon. Many storefronts on Facebook allow browsing of the product catalogs, but do not yet have full e-commerce integration. 1-800- FLOWERS was the first fully functional e-commerce storefront on Facebook, and it was soon followed by Delta Airlines, which allowed users the ability to book flights right on the Facebook platform. More companies are integrating this technology into their storefront pages daily, and it has opened many new opportunities for vendors and customers to connect easily.
If you are a vendor, or have the desire to be one, look into how to sell online to learn about the free apps available for Facebook e-commerce.