• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, January 10, 2011

Some marketers believe Facebook is fast becoming the ecommerce channel for merchants. Supporting the movement, Adgregate Markets Wednesday will launch a Groupon-like deal offering for brands on Facebook in the next version of its ShopFans tool suite -- just in time for Valentine's Day. Could be a match made in heaven.

Along with the group coupon tool, ShopFans V. 2.0 will have functions for loyalty programs, flash sales, enhanced newsfeed commerce functions, access gates and viral promotions. Retailers can highlight specific products on their Wall and offer checkout functions within the post.

Facebook members can now purchase and gift to friends within the social community. The Group-buying feature offers discounts to groups of people who agree to buy a product or service. This retail storefront feature requires a minimum number of buyers in a group and includes a time limit to trigger discount purchasing. Then limited-time product sales discounted because merchants need to sell goods quickly or retailers seek new customers can help flash sales spread buzz around the brand.

Group buying sites have become more popular as consumers continue to hunt for deals. Groupon Monday confirmed recently raising close to a billion -- in fact, $950 million in total private equity funding. The company says the funds will support global expansion, invest in technology, and provide liquidity for employees and early investors.

ShopFans' technology, and now group-buying feature, allows consumers to make secure purchase transactions directly in Facebook without compromising security and privacy. Adgregate Markets powers social commerce storefronts for retailers that in aggregate generate more than $8.5 billion and have more than 20 million Facebook fans.

More ecommerce storefronts are being built in Facebook for retailers, but it's important to note that the platform aims to support larger merchants, not just small- to-mid-size businesses. Last week, electronics online retailer Crutchfield announced it would enable secure social shopping on its Facebook page. The company is the first major electronics retailer to enter the social commerce space on Facebook. Crutchfield, with more than $145 million in 2009 online sales, has about 23,000 Facebook Fans. They now have an option to virally promote and share products while they shop.

Henry Wong, Adgregate Markets CEO, explains that when the post is shared from the storefront to the Wall it allows Facebook members to click and make the purchase. "You can share the deal with friends more easily than forwarding it to others," he says. "The 'build it and they will come' attitude no longer works."

Adgregate Markets creates a user interface layer that integrates with Facebook's social graph and platform powering the backend merchant infrastructure, so the credit card transactions and the product catalog display ties together to seamlessly serve up and process content. Finally, the platform needs to provide an analytics platform back to the retailer to verify the success or failure of the promotions.

The tools also include comments; wish lists; loyalty rewards programs; ratings and reviews; purchase notifications; social badges and check-ins; and gates -- which, for example, require consumers to "Like" a page before access the Facebook store.

Backend systems in ShopFans allow merchants to store and track conversations and analyze the conversion funnel within Facebook. Unlike existing social commerce solutions offered, ShopFans secures commerce application on Facebook, and has won public endorsements from both security and privacy, McAfee and TRUSTe.