Facebook Introduces Buy Buttons for Retailer's Pages

Facebook’s pages for small businesses initially started as a way for them to network with customers and generate a sufficient amount of leads, but now the social network is testing a new method to provide merchants with an online store directly in their Facebook page.

Facebook is testing this new feature with some online retailers. This feature essentially allows merchants to showcase their products and let Facebook users shop directly from within the page, giving businesses the flexibility to offer products without having to leave the Facebook page. The shops are still in the testing phase, but some already feature “Buy” buttons which allows the user to checkout within the page.

Although strategies adopted by Facebook have proven to be quite good at generating revenue through digital advertising, ecommerce would be a significant new source for the company. In the current market, ecommerce is predicted to reach around $350 billion in 2015. The digital advertising market is expected to reach $60 billion by 2015.

Since the company’s major source of revenue till date is through digital advertising, Facebook started to test this “buy” button feature on some of its promotional ads in June. However, these two tests remain independent of one another. Nevertheless, Facebook is surely hoping these prove to be successful.

If this strategy works, Facebook will pave the way for retailers to not just inform customers about their products, but to directly sell it to them. It will have a major impact on social commerce in the current digital age.

In a fierce show of competition, Google also announced a “buy” button for its mobile search ads. Other companies, such as Pinterest and Twitter, have joined in on the trend of implementing ‘Buy Buttons’.