• by Jack Loechner , Staff Writer @mp_research, November 8, 2012

According to a study entitled F-Commerce Facts by Payvment, Facebook sellers are optimistic about the 2012 holiday season, with 49% anticipating that their holiday sales will increase from last year, and just 13% expecting a decline in sales.

Jim Stoneham, CEO of Payvment, says “... Facebook sellers are continuing to invest in promoting their storefronts via Facebook ads, deals and promotions...  and aggressively marketing their stores via... social channels such as Twitter and Pinterest...”

Of the 48% of respondents currently planning promotions:

• 34% plan to offer free shipping
• 23% plan to offer up to a 10% price discount
• 18% plan to offer a discount of up to 20%

While free shipping is the most commonly cited deal type sellers plan to offer over the holidays, sellers with more than 500 fans are most likely to offer a price discount of 11-20%.

Nearly 50% of Facebook sellers say that their perception of Facebook as a platform for business has not changed since the company went public earlier this year, and 20% of respondents say they are actually more confident in the company following the IPO. Just 17% say the IPO and subsequent challenges have made them view Facebook less positively.

42% of respondents report having used Facebook Ads (up from 38% in Q1 of 2012), and more than 65% of respondents say they plan to use Facebook Ads again. Sellers cite effectiveness in fan and customer acquisition as their top reason (65%) for planning more Facebook Ad campaigns. Other reasons for continuing to use Facebook Ad programs include:

• The ability to start and stop campaigns (61%)
• Facebook Ads’ ease of use (55%)
• 48% of respondents cited Facebook’s ad targeting capabilities as a reason to continue using the service compared to 59% in Q1 2012

53% of sellers with 501-1,000 fans have tried Facebook Ads, as opposed to only 29% for sellers with 1-10 fans. Among the 35% who say they wouldn’t use Facebook Ads again, 61% report that they did not acquire many new fans or customers through this channel.

80% of sellers are actively marketing their storefronts and products on Facebook through posts on their Facebook page, and 82% plan to continue this tactic in the future. Twitter has become the second most popular marketing vehicle to drive traffic, with 35% of sellers posting tweets to push shoppers to their storefronts, while 41% of sellers plan to use Twitter to market their store in the next six months.

20% of sellers report using Pinterest as a marketing vehicle, and 32% plan to use Pinterest in the next six months.

32% of sellers are promoting their Facebook store on their company web site, while 30% are using email marketing. A small percentage also use paid media outside of Facebook to attract new fans and customers:

• 8% are running print ads
• 9% are using direct mail
• 7% are buying search ads on Google
• When asked what they like best about selling on Facebook, 56% of respondents cite the ability to promote their products via social marketing as a top benefit, and 54% also like that customers don’t have to leave Facebook to buy their products.

 For more information from Payvment, please visit here.