What started as a follow-up to MySpace and quickly grew into a modern day necessity is now graciously extending its metaphorical hand as a one-stop shop solution for eCommerce.
If you haven’t already guessed, we’re talking about Facebook. Here’s what they had to say in a recent post:
“On Facebook we’ve seen that people are coming to our platform not only to connect with friends and family but also with products and brands. In fact, a survey suggested that nearly half of people come to Facebook to actively look for products, with a majority of them discovering new products in News Feed, Pages, and Groups.”
Facebook raises some good points in their post. They certainly have the user-friendly mobile experience handled, and both buyers and sellers stand to benefit from using their interface as an eCommerce tool.
But what does that mean for YOUR business?
In a nutshell – you may have to rethink how much of your time is invested in Facebook marketing.
There are pros and cons to using Facebook as your sole transaction mechanism, to be sure. Doing everything from your own platform and on your own terms rather than Facebook means YOU are in control. You don’t have to abide by someone else’s rules, you don’t have to worry if a sudden change in layout or coding will undo all your hard work and you don’t have to worry about your products being advertised in a distraction-heavy environment amidst several competitors.
But that doesn’t mean it’s not worth looking into what Facebook is offering…
The potential for profit when using Facebook as your eCommerce hub
Hiring designers, copywriters, content writers, developers, UX developers and more to build and run a successful platform for your business is expensive. For a company like Facebook with abundant resources, it’s not a problem to set up an infrastructure that runs smoothly, but depending on where your business is at, it MIGHT be a problem for you.
Does that mean it’s not worth it? Not necessarily, but it’s possible. That’s a question dependent on several factors.
How big is your audience? Do you stand to earn back your expenditure from building your own platform? Do you sell a service like a monthly subscription, or do you sell once-off commodities?
Questions such as these should lead you to the right answer, but ultimately, you want to do whatever’s going to result in the most profit (and therefore, the most potential for growth) for your business.
But if you need a hand figuring out whether or not investing in your own platform is a good idea, you can sign up for a free media audit today – and we’ll tell you if we see any holes in your Facebook strategy.
