Facebook and e-commerce do not mix, according to Forrester
Forrester Research has published a report in which it basically tells us that at this moment Facebook is not entirely effective in boosting e-commerce sales. “The study found that the average Facebook metric in terms of clickthrough rates is 1%, and its conversion rate is 2%. The e-mail marketing, in comparison, has 11% in percentage of clicks and a rate of 4% on average “.
The reason for all this is obvious, people do not go to Facebook as if it were shopping. Its main function is to go catch up with your friends or play. Sucharita Mulpuru, Forrester analyst, recognize that the page goes to the pages of the brands on Facebook in order to obtain a coupon and that is why the interest of consumers is temporary, which will not have an impact on future sales.
Mulpuru at the same time, makes a very interesting comment: “When retailers put the” Like “buttons on their products, are they really thinking? Your competitors can see which products are the ones that users like the most. Do they expose the sales information like this? With what need?”. Without a doubt, very interesting and deserves to be taken into account.
Is it really a concern? Yes, it is very serious to publish the information that, in theory, should be left at home. The report, in turn, indicates that the companies that sell digital products are more suitable for Facebook’s electronic commerce.
Many people and Facebook executives also want us to believe that this increase is due to the novelty, and that the more companies join, the more people will think of the social network as a place to make purchases. It is true?
It is very difficult to believe that Facebook will be present when we think about buying a DVD or a pair of shoes. It’s a social network and not this. You could ask the contacts what they think of a particular brand and even look at the brand page with the hope of buying a coupon, but from there to make a purchase, there is a big gap.
On the other hand, there is a worrying trend that small businesses force us to enter their Facebook pages in order to get the information we need before buying. Some of these come from Google searches, others from blogs that reference. Why is traffic now being directed to a Facebook page instead of the website itself, where we already have all that information and much more?
