To date, Facebook has focused the majority of its revenue efforts on ads, and, to a lesser extent, payment services around apps that run on its social platform. But Facebook commerce, where users buy physical or other good not connected to apps, is one area where Facebook has not done much– yet. In the meantime the social network becoming a revenue driver for third parties.
The market for Facebook commerce is still in a pretty early stage. Recent research for e-commerce revealed that currently only about 4% of UK consumers have bought something from Facebook. That works out to about £2 billion ($3.2 billion) of an estimated $50.3 billion spent on e-commerce in the UK. The survey seems to indicate that growing to £3 billion in the UK over the next few years. Estimates suggest that worldwide the market for social commerce will be $9 billion this year and top $30 billion by 2015 (that would include more than just Facebook but it has a high percentage of that)
Facebook stores remain separate pages rather than integrated into users’ Timelines. Purchases in the Timeline is something that might come in the future. Facebook is implementing more advertising in the Timeline, adding more commercial activity in there could prove very problematic for user experience in the future.
Will your e-commerce shop be replaced by creating you transactional site on Facebook?
