Why Shop Here? 5 Social Popup Shop Recommendations from Venpop [screenshots]

If there’s one thing that both social commerce promoters and detractors seem to agree on, it’s that simply cloning your e-commerce site onto a tabbed area of your Facebook page is pointless.

Having two virtually identical online stores selling the same products for the same prices with the same promotions and that are effectively in the same place, just one click away from the Facebook news feed where people spend their time, means redundancy.

So does that make e-commerce on Facebook or in other social media futile?

Not necessarily, but you do need to be able to answer the simple and fundamental question:

‘why shop here?’

If your social media store has no unique and compelling value proposition, then shut it down – or better, don’t open it in the first place.

But delivering a compelling answer need not be difficult – just think about the the 4Ps

• Place: Is there a unique and compelling service you offer on you social shop?
• Product: Are you selling something different that’s not available elsewhere on you social shop?
• Price: Are you offering special pricing on your social shop?
• Promotion: Are there any bonuses to shopping on you social shop?

One simple way of creating a unique value proposition for your social media store, but that doesn’t erode margins, is to to do popup retail in social media, with temporary stores selling new products to fans just before they hit the stores.  Venpop is a specialist in popup retail on Facebook offering e-commerce apps for Facebook to run popup shop campaigns, an they offer five recommendations for a successful popup store campaign

1. Pin it: Set the popup shop application as one of the featured applications under your timeline. Pin the post about your pop up shop to the top of your timeline. This increases the number of people who will see your pop up shop and products.
2. Promote it: - Run your popup shop in connection with a promotional campaign or fan offer – you could offer a percentage off or enter people into a draw or contest if they leave you a comment with what they best like about what’s on sale on your popup shop.
3. Fan it: Use a ‘Like Gate’ so that people need to become a fan to get a discount or enter into a draw. Non-fans and fans alike should be able to click on the items in your pop-up shop.
4. Must have it: Choose Popup shop items that fit into the category of Impulse buys. Must have items at hard to resist price points preform best on Facebook.
5. Send it: Send popup shop traffic to your website – send them back to your website, let them see there is more where that came from.