Facebook shows potential of e-commerce platform to attract small retailers

In recent years, small retailers have created Facebook pages to sell products.

Introduction: The New York Times online version wrote this week that in recent years, small retailers have created homepages on Facebook to sell goods, and the social networking site is showing great potential to become an e-commerce platform. Compared with large companies, small businesses are more likely to succeed on Facebook, which may attract more and more small retailers to join.

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The rise of F-commerce

Mandie Miller was a traffic announcer in Charlotte, North Carolina, USA, but she quit her job to take care of her children. She would always make cakes for her friends in her spare time, initially just for fun. But her friends praised the cakes she made, so she started her own business in April 2009 and opened a cake shop called "Got What It Cakes".

Miller also built a website to sell cakes. About five months later, her sister created the Got What It Cakes page on Facebook. From then on, Miller's business started to get better and better. The cake orders increased from 2 to 3 every weekend to 6 to 10. Now, Miller receives 20 cake orders every weekend. By the end of the second year of entrepreneurship, Miller's small cake shop had an annual revenue of more than $40,000.

Got What It Cakes is just one example of a new e-commerce trend called F-commerce, which social media experts say was coined in 2009 to describe the commercial activity of merchants selling products through Facebook pages. Payvment, a startup that provides technology to support Facebook shopping transactions, says it has established partnerships with 170,000 merchants, most of whom have fewer than five employees, and are adding 1,500 merchants a week.

Demonstrating the potential of e-commerce platforms

The rise of F-commerce has been largely accidental, with Facebook not promoting it or encouraging users to use it. A Facebook spokesman declined to comment on the phenomenon, saying only that “there are a lot of experiments going on among retailers.”

Sucharita Mulpuru, a retail industry analyst at market research firm Forrester, pointed out that small businesses are more likely to succeed on Facebook than large companies. According to her, these small businesses generally have annual revenues of less than $100,000 and fewer than 10 employees. On the other hand, large retailers such as Gap, Nordstrom, JC Penney and GameStop have closed their Facebook stores in the past 12 months. Mulpuru believes that this is mainly because users are accustomed to the richer shopping experience of large retailers' exclusive retail online stores.

However, Facebook has brought new challenges to businesses of all sizes. Krista Garcia, a social commerce analyst at market research firm eMarketer, said that some consumers still feel unsafe shopping directly from stores on Facebook. However, business owners should be aware that Facebook's homepage does not belong to them, but to Facebook. Once Facebook changes the appearance and usage rules of the homepage, they will face huge risks.

Here are some tips for small business owners to succeed on Facebook:

Create a store

For small business owners, it is easy to open a shop on Facebook. Just create a page with your company name, upload product photos and add shopping functions. Jay Bean, CEO of online marketing company OrangeSoda, said that since the shops on Facebook look very similar, small business owners should take the time to differentiate their designs.

Then, small business owners can customize their Facebook homepages by installing apps that allow customers to shop, leave messages or view menus. There are currently a variety of apps available from Facebook and third-party vendors, and if they don't feel they are suitable, small business owners can customize their own apps. The tools provided by Payvment allow companies to create a Facebook store with shopping carts, discount information, group purchase coupons and other promotional methods.

Provide personalized service

Wendy Tan-White, CEO of Moonfruit, an e-commerce website service provider, said that unlike large companies, small businesses can build a good personal relationship with end users. Wendy recommends that small business owners place a distinctive background photo on their Facebook homepage, which can not only showcase products and services, but also attract customers' attention at once.

For example, on the Facebook page of Got What It Cakes, the background photo is a picture of Miller at home, with baby photos on the wall behind her and cakes scattered around the living room. Many of her customers are mothers like Miller, with whom she often communicates on Facebook. Miller said, "We are a local business, I am both the owner and the employee, but I have 5,000 fans."

Miller offers advice that customers might only get from a friend, such as what to do with leftover brownies: "Put some butter in the pan and make some pancakes with it."

Attract users' attention

To attract the attention of fans and friends, small business owners need to keep their Facebook pages updated, that is, posting something frequently, such as status updates and photos. Tagging people in photos makes it possible for them to appear on that person's Facebook homepage and eventually be seen by his or her friends and friends of friends.

DeAnn Kump, founder of the maternity and baby products company TuTu Cute, holds a monthly contest to encourage fans to post their photos on the TuTu Cute Facebook page. "If someone posts a photo of their daughter wearing something I sell, I'll tag it," said Kump, who created the TuTu Cute Facebook page in December. "Then their friends will see it and think, 'What does TuTu Cute do?' And then they'll go to my Facebook page." Kump created the TuTu Cute Facebook page in December. Half of TuTu Cute's product sales come from this page.

Tan-White suggests that small business owners should offer customers more discounts to encourage them to spread the word of their services. For example, if customers tag their photos, they can get a discount. In addition, Facebook has a feature that allows users to push a post to the top of a business's homepage, whether the post is about the hot product of the week or about a special offer.

Focus on community

In April, Magical Moments Modeling, a professional modeling service, named TuTu Cute its "Boutique of the Month" on its Facebook page, so that users of both pages can see it. Kump often promotes the work of her favorite child photographers, and in return, these photographers will promote her work.

Patrick Skoff, a painter who sells 90 percent of his paintings on Facebook, said some people who visit his Facebook page may be hesitant to buy his work at first, but are reassured by seeing comments and “likes” on new and sold works.

"They see those 'likes' and they think, 'I better buy that,'" Skov said. In July, he sold 10 works a day for 10 days, all on Facebook.

Darren Gann, co-founder of the Baby Grocery Store, created his own Facebook page in February. He said that Facebook contributes 35% of Baby Grocery Store's product sales, and also provides a lot of help and advice to customers. Gann said: "We talk about everything from shipping volume to the ideal diet for 9-month-old babies."

Heather Logrippo, owner of clothing retailer We've Labels, created a Facebook page in 2009. She regularly updates her Facebook page. "When I log on to the We've Labels page, I start interacting with customers, like saying 'You knitted a beautiful scarf,'" she said.

Provide more choices

Some small business owners sell products exclusively on Facebook, while others also operate separate websites or physical stores because not all customers are willing to use credit card transactions on Facebook.

Ashley Gall, owner of jewelry retailer Méli Jewelry, said that shopping on Facebook is still a new concept for many of her customers — Méli Jewelry only gets 15% of its sales on Facebook — so she also sells the jewelry she designs and makes on Etsy, Indie Fashion Marketplace and her own website.

Most of Miller's customers place their orders on Facebook and pay after she delivers or picks up their cakes. However, Miller continues to run her website. "I usually do a lot of wedding cakes, which are usually paid for by the bride's parents, who often prefer to buy on traditional commercial websites," she said. "Also, I have a group of elderly customers in their 80s and 90s who will come to the store to taste the cakes in person instead of buying them through Facebook."