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The Facebook Retail Reinvention

By Debbie Hauss, Editor-in-Chief

A few years ago retailers were lamenting their decisions to try to use Facebook as a commerce channel. A Business Insider article made the statement clearly:

“Companies first started selling things directly through Facebook in 2009. Then, in 2011, Facebook convinced a bunch of big, high-profile brands like GameStop, Gap, J.C. Penney, and Nordstrom to open stores on the site through their business pages. They all ended up closing their stores within a year.”

Fast-forward to 2017: Facebook is a clear choice for retailers and brands looking to target shoppers with relevant ads and videos. At this year’s eTail West event, I think I heard more mentions of Facebook (in a positive way) than at any other recent event.

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Executives from eBags, Coco Jack, Lime Crime Cosmetic and Betabrand (to name just a few) all mentioned Facebook as a primary advertising vehicle during their sessions.

“We use Facebook for paid ads, to share recipes, announce big sales,” said Dave Goodman, Founder & CEO of Coco Jack. “There are so many ways to use it. It’s gotten better and better.”

For eBags, Facebook provides a way for the retailer to share animated videos that show potential customers how they can use the products, noted Peter Cobb, Co-Founder and EVP. The retailer has defined persona groups to target with specific product videos. “It’s been working really well year-over-year and it’s easy to test,” Cobb explained.

The New Era Of Facebook Commerce

With the advent and advancement of Virtual Reality (VR), Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the Internet of Things (IoT), platforms like Facebook are seeing opportunities they can’t ignore in order to survive.

In a recent webinar, titled: Retail-On-Demand: The Impending Disruption of e-Commerce, Bronto’s Matt Davis explained the potential impact of customer service chat opportunities — available via Facebook Commerce — on e-Commerce interactions: “This really represents a shift now to where chat is starting to become the center of this kind of brand or product retailer interaction, directly with the customer,” said Davis. “The digital storefront has a lot of different paths for customers and how they connect to retailers.”

And Mark Zuckerberg introduced live Facebook Live Virtual Reality at the Facebook Oculus Connect event in October 2016. Zuckerberg talked about “building a software platform that puts people first.” Together via Facebook Live, friends can play games, travel to the bottom of the ocean, watch movies or visit the Facebook offices.

For retailers, of course the ideal would be to connect with a sales associate and complete a transaction. A recent article from Small Business Trends explains how to use Facebook Live to promote an event, introduce new products, and offer customer service.

There certainly are still hurdles to overcome for the likes of Facebook when it comes to improving the mobile experience, payment and security concerns and the overall perception of Facebook as a shopping channel. But in an impressive turnaround, it looks like the (virtual) sky is the limit for Facebook and other social platforms looking to stay connected with consumers in the future…and beyond.

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