Doing business on Facebook

[superdetail]

I am hoping that we can talk about doing business on Facebook.

How do you get users to "like" your store?

How do you get your current customers to join you on Facebook?

Once you have the customers how do you persuade them to buy? How do you tastefully engage them in dialogue?

How do you get them to share your business or products with their friends?

If you are already doing some business (if not, too) on Facebook, share your ideas.

[culttvman]

I've had a Facebook store and Facebook page for my shop, almost from the launch of the app. The interesting thing is that I have yet to get a single order through the Facebook store app.

I know that all the social media integration has resulted in more traffic to the shop and additional purchases. Being active on Facebook has attracted some new customers, as well as repeat business from old customers. For being free, you can't beat it.

I also know that people follow the shop updates I do through Twitter. I'm not sure there is as much response from Twitter, but then again, being free and integrated with Facebook means it is no added work on my part.

Steve
CultTVmanShop.com

[ritchey]

I have mixed feelings on FaceBook. I don't like how FaceBook is centered on "me", verses my store. From what I have read for most people its not producing a lot of sales yet. It does get eyeballs, but the sales have not followed. It's important to work on for SEO.

[rburton34]

I have mixed feelings on FaceBook. I don't like how FaceBook is centered on "me", verses my store. From what I have read for most people its not producing a lot of sales yet. It does get eyeballs, but the sales have not followed. It's important to work on for SEO.

Are you Ritchey from Volusion? If so, are you testing things here or did you move over to 3D? Seems to be a lot of familiar names here lately...

[piaf]

Although we have a 3dCart version of our store on our Facebook business page, it hasn't generated much in sales. I think the value of Facebook is exposure. We post our new products, sales, coupons, and updated information about our store on Facebook. We also throw in links to informational articles from other non-ecommerce sites (like news sites or blogs) that are relevant to our customers so that we cam mix up the information presented there. We don't want it to seem like a constant sales pitch or we'll lose fans.

[ritchey]

Same :-)

99% sure of moving. 3cart Store opened, but not set up yet. I just need to find the time to move my data.

Are you Ritchey from Volusion? If so, are you testing things here or did you move over to 3D? Seems to be a lot of familiar names here lately...

[piaf]

Yep, that's the time consuming part. Took me 5 months to develop my site and move all my products and content over from Volusion doing it by myself on a very-part-time basis.

[ritchey]

cart 2 cart looks very good for moving over things.

I just keep on getting hit with orders, or figuring out why I have no orders (recycle app pool) that is slowing me down right now.

[jwm2]

cart 2 cart looks very good for moving over things.

I just keep on getting hit with orders, or figuring out why I have no orders (recycle app pool) that is slowing me down right now.

Its actually pretty easy to import your customers, categories and products using the import feature on 3d cart. Much easier than what i was thinking it was going to be. I was able to import 16,000 customers, about 20 categories and 250 products in a day with very few problems along the way. You'll definately want to create a test product first and then export it, that will give you a map on where things go when you copy and paste the data to your spreadsheet.

I really like how much more flexible 3d cart is vs volusion. I was with volusion for 4 years and in the last 6 months have lost well over 100-150k in revenue due to their server issues. A good 2/3s of my customers couldn't checkout with my volusion site after the w09 update. I originally just thought it was the recession until i started getting emails about cart problems just a few weeks ago. It amazes me that so many people would just click off my site and never inform me of the issues. I really wish someone had said something months ago. Normally in december we do about 50k and 60k in january, but this year we did 25k both months, thats 60k in just 2 months of lost revenue i'll never be able to get back. I'm so upset its not even funny. From this point on i will do all i can to steer folks away from volusion.

[Evolution]

Another user of the Facebook store for some time without any orders from it. I also tried some Facebook ads and didn't see much of a return for my investment.