Facebook Commerce: Greed is Good… [infographic]

Greed is good, says Wall Street’s Gordon Gekko, Greed is right, greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed, in all of its forms; greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge has marked the upward surge of mankind. And greed, you mark my words, will not only save Teldar Paper Facebook Commerce, but that other malfunctioning institution called the USA social commerce.

Greed demands results, and right now e-commerce apps for Facebook, despite all the hype and hutzpah – seem yet to deliver.  Online trade mag MarketingVOX is unimpressed, and Baynote gives Facebook a derisory C+ for shopping (vs A for e-commerce website, and B- for mobile and tablets) (see infographic below).

But speculative – greed-driven – investment continues to pour into Facebook commerce. Social commerce app developer Moontoast, has just secured a $6m investment, whilst zmags, specialist app developer for e-commerce enabled catalogues on Facebook and elsewhere - has received $7m. Greed is driving these investments – but will they pay off?  Only if the apps themselves deliver for their business users.

As long as companies only use these e-commerce apps on Facebook to sell what they’re already selling elsewhere – in store or on their e-commerce sites, we think Facebook stores are fairly futile.  If greed is your motive, we’d recommend that you ‘sell different’ on Facebook – using Facebook as a dedicated platform for fan-sales - offering fan-first exclusives and exclusive fan-merchandise with a view to driving fan loyalty (lifetime value) and advocacy (referral value).

Just as the secret to successful e-commerce is to sell something that can’t be purchased on Amazon, the secret to successful Facebook commerce is to sell something that can’t be purchased on your website (yet).

Thoughts?