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Ogilvy Infographic: How to Choose Your F-Commerce Software Vendor

Tom Crampton, Asia-Pacific director of 360 Digital Influence for Ogilvy, has started putting together what could become a very useful infographic that benchmarks major Facebook e-commerce software solutions.  It’s a useful companion to the vendor list over at MetaLinQ, and our latest 2011 guide to f-commerce for consumer brands. Tom is crowdsourcing corrections and additions, but here’s his very preliminary draft.  Beware, there are some errors in this first draft – for example, 8thbridge runs ‘off-Facebook’ portable stores too (that can be embedded into ad units/web sites) as well as on-Facebook stores – and does not work exclusively on a revenue share model.

So right now – use Tom’s draft more as a useful guide for questions to ask vendors, rather than as a source of ultimate f-commerce truth.

A few suggestions…

  • First, the infographic might benefit from and explicit and specific focus on f-commerce apps that allow people to complete transactions without leaving Facebook – there are many other storefront solutions that drive traffic to e-commerce sites outside of Facebook.  Useful but a very different proposition.
  • Second, add some other innovative and or major players such as Resource Interactive (P&G stores), TabJuice (groovy customisation), Dotbox (Snoop Dogg store) to 8thBridge, Milyoni, Moontoast, Payvment, ShopIgniter (who have just teamed up with Vitrue), and Usablenet (and Zibaba and NorthSocial should their software support on-Facebook transactions).
  • Third, rethink the benchmarking categories – this is tough, as the list is long – and different brands will have different priorities – but we’d include these as the key categories for benchmarking.
    • Pricing Model
    • Target Market
    • Popularity (# Live Stores)
    • Showcase Clients
    • Self-Serve Option?
    • Storefront Options (Tab/Newsfeed/Ad Units)?
    • Support Digital Downloads/Streaming?
    • Subscriptions?
    • Payment/Checkout Options
    • Facebook Credits?
    • Storefront Portability (Embeddable outside Facebook)?
    • Storefront Personalisation (‘Friends Store’ – Open Graph)?
    • Social Actions (Share/Send/Like/Comment)?
    • Social Promotions (Group-Buy/Customer-Get-Customer?)
    • Coupons/Gift Certificates?
    • Integrated Analytics?
    • E-Commerce Site Integration?
    • Search as you Type?
    • Shipment Tracking?

All that makes for a big infographic for Tom, but it would be v. useful for comparing the market leaders (and there are yet more features you might consider when comparing software…)

  • WYSIWYG editor, International, Affiliates, eBay Listing Integration, Multiple Skins, Taxation, Featured Products, Product Ratings/Reviews, Popular Products, Search as you Type, Wish List, Share, Send, Comment, Membership Discounts, Reward Points, Stock Control, Realtime Shipping Calculation

Thoughts? What for you are the key features of an integrated f-commerce solution?

And here’s the link for our 2011 guide to f-commerce for consumer brands.

Written by
Dr Paul Marsden
Leave a Reply to F-Commerce Solution Providers | Updated July 2011 Benchmarking from Ogilvy | Social Commerce Today Cancel reply

13 comments
  • Thanks so much for the suggestions!

    As you mention, all of that would make an impossibly big infographic, but we’ll start work on integrating as much as we can.

    Will post the revised version on the same URL shortly.

    Tom

  • Thx! Great list and great inspiration for us as we just develop our own Facebook Tab Store and Web-Shop with Drupal (one prod.-catalogue/shop backend/CMS/SEO tools but three themes (520 px (tab), 940px (web-shop) plus a mobile.css (web) for iPhone and Android).

    Our hypothesis here is that the differences will blur – “…social is just another layer, let the SoLoMo buy where he just happens to be…” ;-)

    And don’t forget the power of Google for e & f-commerce’s traffic & conversion numbers now that we know that Google use Twitter and Facebook to influence regular search results…

    Will definetely “keep my radar” on your criteria to fulfill (future) user needs as best as possible.

    Gerhard

  • Great news !!! But the problems will be the cost to the startup companies … in my case ..Brazil . But I will be check. Thanks.

    • Danilo:

      Check out TabJuice – its the most cost efficient. Only $20/ month to set up , customize, and keep up your own storefront/shopping cart.

  • Fresh out of the oven:-) You should check the only F-Commerce platform that gives you the option to fully customize your store according to your brand, provides you with all the social features, and works seamlessly with big e-Commerce sites: Magento, Shopify, Zen-cart etc.
    It’s called StoreYa, and I highly recommend you to check it out!
    http://www.StoreYa.com

    Mia Perry
    StoreYa’s account manager

  • As some said above, I’d like to point out that Venpop (http://venpop.com) is missing from the list. Venpop is currently powering more than a thousand retailers and used by BestBuy, Guess, Bulgari, and many many more retailers. Venpop is a spin off of the social commerce platform that powers Wishpot.com.

    It provides a complete self-service solution for Facebook, Twitter and on-site.

    If you need additional information feel free to reach out directly to me. I’ll most definitely give you a complete demo!

    Max
    Venpop

  • #1 Thanks!
    for this great blog, the f-commerce whitepaper and this article, Paul

    #2 what about google plus?
    Will we need similar whitepapers, guides etc. for “g-commerce” in the near future ? In Germany many of the big publishers (e.g. spiegel.de, bild.de, handelsblatt.de) wrote yesterday that google plus might be the better facebook. What will it mean for merchands and brands? Do they need everything twice in future e.g. fanpages, shops etc.? Whats your opinion?

  • Also, please take a look at SocialAppsHQ – lot more features and better pricing than most of the competition

    Thx

  • sounds like a good idea only time will tell if it will work loads of people have face book millions infact but do they use facebook for shopping what are the figures does any one now how much is sold on facebook each month is it housewifes buying clothes ?

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