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Small Businesses Favor Facebook Selling
by Jack Loechner, Monday, March 19, 2012 6:15 AM
According to the F-Commerce Facts survey by Payvment of over 100,000 sellers on Facebook, small sellers are using a wide variety of outside marketing channels to drive traffic to their Facebook
storefronts, including Twitter, Google ads and email marketing. Sellers Aggressively
Marketing Facebook Store (% of Respondents Using Tactic) Tactic%
Using Tactic Facebook ads 39% Linking from
company website 38 Twitter 34 Email marketing 30 Print advertising 12 Direct mail 9 Google ads 8 Source: Payvment, March 2012 The majority of
respondents are small businesses with less than 500 Facebook fans. The data shows strong adoption and favorability towards Facebook Ads, with most sellers planning to use the social
network’s ad products again. Small Business “Like
Best” About Selling On FacebookLike Best% of
Respondents Ability to promote products via social marketing 61%
Customers don’t have to leave Facebook to buy 60 Easy to set up and maintain
storefront 50 Already familiar with how Facebook works 40 Shoppers can easily discover products 33 Source: Payvment, March 2012 Christian Taylor, founder and CEO of Payvment, notes that “... there are hundreds of thousands
of small businesses who are successfully selling products on Facebook... a robust and vibrant environment in which sellers are aggressively marketing their products through many different channels...
bringing revenue and traffic back to Facebook... ” Payvment sellers, the majority of whom are small businesses, are marketing their businesses using Facebook ads and numerous other
social channels. Small Business Sales ChannelsChannel% Using Exclusively Facebook
37% Facebook and: Website 63% Trade of craft shows 30 EBay 29 Retail stores 29 ETSY 21
Amazon 15 Source: Payvment, March 2012
Key conclusions from the survey by Payvment include:
- More than one-third of respondents report having used Facebook Ads, making this the most prevalent marketing tactic used by
sellers to drive traffic to their stores, beyond general Facebook marketing such as promotions and deals posted to their wall, and nearly 70% of respondents say they plan to use Facebook Ads
again
- Among the 30% of Facebook sellers who say they wouldn’t use Facebook Ads again, 68% report that they did not acquire many new fans or customers through this channel. 65% say
they wouldn’t continue because they are too expensive; 32% say that Facebook Ads are too expensive to use; 63% cite lack of budget as their primary deterrent
- While 84% of sellers are
actively marketing on Facebook, and 39% are using Facebook Ads, many are also using other marketing channels to drive traffic to their stores. 38% are promoting their Facebook store on their company
web site, 34% are using Twitter, and 30% are using email marketing
- The data shows that Facebook sellers plan to increase their marketing efforts across the board over the next six months
using Google Ads, print ads, email marketing and direct mail
- When asked what they like best about selling on Facebook, the majority 61% of respondents cite the ability to promote their
products via social marketing as a top benefit of selling on Facebook, and 60% like that customers don’t have to leave Facebook to buy their products
- Nearly 50% of sellers say it
is easy to set up and maintain a storefront on Facebook, and 40% say they like selling on Facebook because they are already familiar with how Facebook works. 33% say they like selling on
Facebook because shoppers can more easily discover their products
- Nearly 50% of respondents have been selling on Facebook for less than 6 months, and 72% report having less than 500
fans. 72% of respondents point to their small fan base as the biggest challenge of selling on Facebook. 38% cite lack of understanding about how to do marketing on Facebook as a top
challenge, and 31% say they don’t have enough time to do marketing
For
more information about the Payvmant study, please visit the complete release here.