F-commerce, a term derived from e-commerce, refers to the e-commerce on Facebook and has already become a powerful e-commerce strategy to drive traffic to the e-commerce site and selling products on Facebook. Facebook social networking platform has become a hub of millions of potential customers and tapping those customers to the original e-commerce & letting them buy your product is an option that no longer can be ignored. Think about a single mom who can be your next best customer, is using Facebook network and rarely searches for your keywords. How do you win her loyalty for your business? As a business owner you should make sure your products’ visibility to the Facebook users and keep them updated about your products and services.

Retailers are using Facebook to engage permanent & potential customers to drive traffic to their websites. Apart from driving traffic to websites, they are using Facebook applications which let the Facebook users get updated on the product and service offerings; order a product without visiting the original site or recommending to a friend. Market leading brands like iTunes, McDonalds, Porsche etc. have their Facebook fan-page and applications that give excellent Facebook shopping experience to the users. Target audience, technology, credibility, market trends and increased Facebook users – all speak for the possibility of F-commerce.

Facebook is already challenging the market leading search engines as a major source of traffic to e-commerce websites. Many retailers are using social media to build large groups of devotees in local communities. Community based product serving is an important aspect for business growth, especially for the small and medium business type and Facebook can be the perfect platform to organize this devotees in a local community.

Customer advocacy (A friend is recommending a product or people finding products bought by friends) is an important selling point that can be achieved using f-commerce. From a customer’s perspective, f-commerce allows him/her to shop with the social graph and can make smarter and informed purchasing decision using the social intelligence (learning from friends).

Fcommerce has already become another online channel (not an alternative but a parallel channel) for businesses to sell products & services with all the marketing power that Facebook provides.

Some additional advantages of fcommerce that should help you decide to go fcommerce if you are not already in it:

1. Facebook users spend more time online than other internet users.
2. Fcommerce drives customer advocacy which has a stronger impact on reference selling.
3. Facebook helps identify and create a local community based market segment.
4. Enhance a diverse exposure of your brand and business.
5. Customized application can be built to particularly meet your business need.
6. Build brand awareness

Would you invest to make sure your business appearance on Facebook or do you consider Facebook as the next MySpace? Regardless of your point of view, as a business owner you should grab every single possibility and f-commerce is an opportunity you should no way miss. It is evident that Facebook commerce will revolutionize the way people shop, making it a truly social shopping experience. Build a strong f-commerce appearance for your overall e-commerce success.