How to Sell On Facebook
Facebook offer a myriad of opportunities for business owners to attract and keep new clients as well as advertise their brand to markets that were not previously available to them. Aside from just attracting new business and marketing their brand, merchants can use also create a Facebook store in order to sell their products and services. Facebook offers a variety of tools and channels for selling products and most of them are quite simple to use.
If you thought that selling on Facebook was just for large retailers such as JC Penney or Lands’ End, think again. Any online business can easily sell on Facebook by first understanding how you can sell on Facebook and then assessing which method or methods work best for your business.
Fan Page
A Facebook Fan page is sort of like a fan club for your brand or business. People who are familiar with your services or product become a “fan” of the page by clicking the “Like” button at the bottom of the page. Once your “fan club” is established, you can use this page to generate interest in your brand by posting relevant and engaging content.
You can also advertise special promotions that you are running and post backlinks to the landing pages of your business website. This avenue of marketing is free and highly effective, but requires lots of dedication on the page owner’s part to make sure the content is kept fresh and updated.
Facebook Ads
Facebook sells ad space that appears in the sidebar of users’ pages. The beauty of these ads is that you have almost limitless freedom in the criteria of audience you want to attract. For example, if you want to reach a demographic that is 40-45 years old, employed in the medical field and lives in the Southern United States – you could do that! Your ad would appear on the page of every Facebook user that met that criteria.
The only drawback to these ads (and it’s a big one) is that Facebook can’t make them click the ad to bring them to your product and offers no guarantee of such.
Facebook Store Apps
You can install an app into your Facebook page that will allow customers to scroll through the products you have for sale right on your Fan Page. Once they decide they want to make a purchase, clicking the corresponding picture will link them to your website where they can proceed with the transaction. While this is a great way to show off your wares in once place to people who are most interested in them, having to leave the Facebook website to complete the purchase can be a turnoff for some.
Facebook Store
When combined with some or all of the aforementioned methods of selling on Facebook, opening an actual store on the site can be quite successful. The store is accessed via a “Shop” tab that appears on your Fan Page. Once users click that tab, they are brought to your Facebook storefront where all your products are on display.
The checkout process uses VeriSign secure encryption and customers complete their transactions on the Facebook “Shop” page – no need to go anywhere else or use alternate checkout methods. It’s all conveniently at their fingertips. Even though this seems like the best route to go when selling on Facebook, there’s no way for consumers to leave feedback or share their experience with others so it’s up to each merchant to evaluate the good and bad aspects of those details in comparison with some of the other methods of selling on Facebook.
Helen Fang is an ecommerce and social media expert who is responsible for Vendio ecommerce software customers on the best ways to sell online through channels like eBay, Amazon, Facebook and through their own online stores.
thanks for sharing this one! I have been using facebook for a couple years and i must say that i really enjoy it. A lot of people use it in different purposes. Some even use it for business. I don’t have a problem with it because facebook is one of the most widely used social media today so this can really help them to increase the sales of their product. Nice article by the way!
These Facebook tips will help me a lot from now on, thank you very much for taking the time to share them with us!