{"id":23199,"date":"2012-09-28T08:27:16","date_gmt":"2012-09-28T06:27:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=23199"},"modified":"2012-09-28T14:14:40","modified_gmt":"2012-09-28T12:14:40","slug":"facebook-taps-into-e-commerce-potential","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/internet\/23199\/facebook-taps-into-e-commerce-potential\/","title":{"rendered":"Facebook taps into e-commerce potential"},"content":{"rendered":"

Facebook Inc<\/a> is taking a small step toward becoming an e-commerce platform by launching a feature for users to buy and send real gifts worth as much as hundreds of dollars.<\/p>\n

As of Thursday, users can purchase and ship products from more than a hundred “Facebook Gifts” vendors with a few clicks on the company’s website. The products include eyeglasses by Warby Parker, Starbucks coffee, and pastries from New York-based Magnolia Bakery.<\/p>\n

Coming four months after Facebook’s troubled initial public offering, the feature marks the company’s attempt to unlock a potentially significant new revenue stream.<\/p>\n

Although it has sought to diversify its income sources, Facebook still relies heavily on display advertising. During the second quarter, more than 80 percent of its revenue of $1.18 billion came from ads while roughly 15 percent came from game-maker Zynga Inc<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Facebook, which can store credit card data for users, will make money by taking a cut of each gift transaction. The amount varies based on the individual deals it has struck with vendor partners, the company said without disclosing specifics.<\/p>\n

The world’s No. 1 social network, boasting nearly 1 billion user accounts, has long viewed commercial transactions as a massive opportunity for the platform. But marketing researchers have found that consumers have been slow to make purchases on the website because many treat it as a place to chat and post messages rather than go shopping.<\/p>\n

Facebook hopes to change that by getting users used to the idea of giving small gifts as part of their social routine.<\/p>\n

“People already use Facebook to communicate with their friends and share all of their life moments,” said Lee Linden, a Facebook product manager heading the Gifts feature.<\/p>\n

“Gifting is just a natural extension of that behavior. It makes a lot of sense for us not to just say ‘Happy Birthday’ but to send a gift, not just say ‘I love you’ but send some flowers.”<\/p>\n

Current gifts cost $5 up to several hundred dollars for a Jambox stereo by Aliph Inc, said Linden, who joined the company in May. His previous start-up, Karma, was acquired by Facebook in a deal announced on the day of Facebook’s high-profile IPO.<\/p>\n

Facebook had experimented with a “virtual” gift-exchange feature years ago, but shut it down in 2010. The original gifts were no more than digital trinkets, cartoon images of flower bouquets, teddy bears and even women’s underwear.<\/p>\n

Linden said Facebook now aims to provide effortless shopping and shipping of real goods. Users are alerted when their packages are shipped and received, and every package comes with a customizable card stamped with a Facebook logo.<\/p>\n

Recipients who do not like their gifts can discreetly swap colors or sizes for no charge.<\/p>\n

“We think we can make an end-to-end way to buy a product that is very seamless,” Linden said. “We take care in the photos, in the packaging, in everything.”<\/p>\n

The service will be initially available to a random group of U.S. users logging into Facebook through its website and an Android<\/a> app. An iPhone app is still in development, Linden said.<\/p>\n

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Facebook Inc is taking a small step toward becoming an e-commerce platform by launching a feature for users to buy and send real gifts worth as much as hundreds of dollars.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":13106,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9882],"tags":[25,2065,45],"class_list":["post-23199","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-internet","tag-active","tag-e-commerce","tag-facebook"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23199","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23199"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23199\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23272,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23199\/revisions\/23272"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13106"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23199"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23199"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23199"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}