Social commerce, including storefronts on Facebook, has gained surprisingly little traction despite the momentum behind social media. That was evident in the recent holiday season. However, the industry clearly sees this as a temporary state of affairs, as more retailers launch social commerce offerings.
In recent days five major ticket sellers–Ticketmaster, StubHub, ScoreBig, Eventbrite and TicketFly–have just launched an online store on Facebook. Garnet Hill has also opened its own Facebook storefront with a full collection on the site.
"It is not surprising that shopping and socializing—activities that complement each other in the real world—are beginning to converge online as well," said Krista Garcia, eMarketer analyst and author of the new report, "Facebook Commerce: Reaching Shoppers Where They Socialize," says in this post.
"As social media, and Facebook in particular, plays a larger role in consumers’ lives, people are becoming accustomed to performing routine tasks like reading news, watching videos and listening to music, as well as discovering products and shopping, all while staying logged in to a single site. Instead of compartmentalizing daily routines, social media users are treating Facebook as a one-stop platform."
A Sixfold Rise
A more tangible sign of s-commerce’s traction comes from Booz & Company, which predicts that by 2015, the dollar volume of goods sold through social media should rise sixfold, to $30 billion from $5 billion in 2011. It limited its estimate to hard goods such as electronics, apparel, and movie tickets.
The company forecasts the market to almost double this year to $9 billion, of which the US will account for $3 billion, up from $1 billion in 2011. Indeed, while Booz & Company expects rest of the world revenues to increase by 400% between 2011 and 2015, its projections are even more aggressive for the US market, forecast to grow from $1 billion last year to $14 billion in 2015.
Another encouraging sign comes from an Irish start-up, VendorShop, which as developed a Facebook pop-up store application and just secured investment funding of €400,000, according to Inside Ireland.
