Did you know that you can have a storefront on Facebook?  Well, you can and it is a lucrative place for lots of online retailers.  While your Facebooks fans are talking about you, if you have a Facebook store, they can also share products directly from your store.  They can "like" a product which would then be publicized on their wall for all their friends to see. 

There are multiple Facebook store formats to use, and we have highlighted a few of the better ones here:
  1. Payvment allows all transactions to take place entirely on Facebook.  The platform also includes features like social sharing options, analytics tracking, product management solutions, orders and payment support and store setup.  It also has 3 services levels - free, premium and platinum. 
  2. Ecwid offers a widget that builds seamlessly integrated online stores in minutes. It works with any existing website as well as major content management systems such as WordPress and Joomla. The widget can also be used to build a Web store on Facebook and accepts payments from all major payment systems. The service is free for smaller stores and pricing begins at $17 for stores with over 100 products.
  3. ShopVisible is a fully immersive e-commerce experience for Facebook users. The suite of e-commerce, analytics and social marketing tools was designed specifically for selling on the world’s most popular social network. It can be used as a stand-alone platform for Facebook or integrated to an existing e-commerce store, duplicating the experience customers would find on your primary retail website without requiring users to leave the Facebook site.
  4. ShopIgniter offers a suite of products for f-commerce that allow fans to make purchases directly within Facebook.  It features real-time inventory checks, social rewards, exclusive-offer technology and a social product launch feature.
  5. BigCommerce gives users the ability to browse products and share them with their Facebook friends before making any purchases, but unlike the previous solution the transaction itself takes place on the merchant’s BigCommerce-powered website. BigCommerce offers a free 15-day demo of the app, and pricing starts at $24.95 per month.
  6. VendorShop currently powers thousands of Facebook shops and has over 170,000 active Facebook users, which makes it one of the top three providers of integrated Facebook stores worldwide. The software is free to install and all stores carry the McAfee Secure and VeriSign Trust marks of security and have powerful promotion tools to maximize social selling opportunities.

It is important to remember when creating an f-commerce store to remember that Facebook is a social media site first and foremost, so make sure to keep providing valuable content on your page for fans and not just product promos.