How Using The 'F' Word Can Increase Sales and Make You Money

The ‘F’ Word
By Michael Katz

The ‘F’ word is spreading in popularity.  It’s being shared, liked, commented on, and interacted with, millions of times a day all around the world.  The ‘F’ word is an accepted part of society.  Unless you’ve been living in a cave for the past five years you’ll know that ‘F’ stands for Facebook.  But now everyone is also beginning to understand the meaning and implications of F-Commerce. 

F-Commerce, also known as Social Commerce, is a growing business for retailers, service providers, record companies, ticket agencies and anyone who wants to reach and engage with the 700 million users of Facebook.  In fact, if Facebook was a country it would be the third most populated country in the world, with more than double the population of the United States of America.  So, if you run a business, wouldn’t you want to extend your professional reach to 700 million potential customers?

In theory, reaching a vast target audience within their ‘comfort zone’ and placing products in front of them has immense potential to increase sales.  But commerce on Facebook is so much more than going in for the sale.  It’s now about customer interaction.  Problems can be solved, customers can be assisted, products can be reviewed, brands can communicate to potential customers and finally, and most important, customers can communicate to brands.  The process of customer engagement has changed and the focus has shifted from direct selling to loyalty building.  Brands can now engage directly with loyal ‘fans’ and reward them accordingly.

Brands who use 3^rd party deal sites have reportedly seen a very low conversion from bargain hunter to long term brand customer.  Now, utilizing the power of their own brand and as a tool for reward instead of pure incentive driven promotion, brands are able to run group offers and flash sales directly from their own Shopify store within their own Facebook fan page.  Utilizing social interaction functions such as like or share, offers and products are spread virally by real people in place of subscription based emails, which often have high bounce rates.

Media coverage of F-Commerce has also increased.  Six months ago, there would be an occasional mention of Brand X opening a store on Facebook.  Now, pretty much every day, there are releases detailing stores which have opened for business within Facebook.  Even the number of media channels has increased to write and update the world on the advancement of F-Commerce.

With the holiday season approaching fast, now would be the ideal time to setup your storefront on Facebook and claim your online social real estate.

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Michael Katz is the VP of Business Development at Zibaba. Using Zibaba's Facebook Store App for Shopify gives you the opportunity to recreate your Shopify store on Facebook and compliment your current offering. Zibaba offers a 14 day free trial to all Shopify store owners, so you have a no risk solution to test drive your store on Facebook. If you're interested, go to the Shopify App Store and watch a 3-minute step-by-step video on how to set it up.