Hallmark customers can now create and purchase custom greeting cards from the company's Facebook fan page.
According to Internet Retailer magazine, at the Internet Retailer Conference and Exhibition post-conference workshop session, “Brave New World of Selling on Facebook,” businesses shared how they use Facebook as an online store. David Saville, Hallmark’s innovations product manager, was one of the speakers and explained to the audience how the company started selling greeting cards on Facebook.
Since many Hallmark shoppers do not visit Hallmark.com, but do interact on Facebook, the company thought it would be beneficial to start selling cards to customers through a “shop” tab on its Facebook fan page. This tab allows shoppers to customize and purchase greeting cards. Hallmark then mails the purchased card to the customer. The entire process is made possible with a combination of the social media network, Facebook and technology vendor, Alvenda, Inc. Once a customer purchases a card from the Facebook shop, Alvenda sends the order to Hallmark.com’s system. This allows all the orders to end up in one place.
Hallmark is not the only business using social media networking site, Facebook to sell products. A smaller retailer, Equator Estate Coffee and Teas manually manages the orders from both its Web site and the Facebook fan page. Since the retailer has found that their Web store is harder to update than the Facebook store, they use Facebook to sell the small-batch products that are only available for a limited time. That way they can regularly add and subtract the items they have available in the store. They also like to give Facebook fans special offers and access to promotions as a “thank you” for “liking” them on Facebook.
Clearly, social media marketing opportunities are growing every day. Not only can businesses connect with customers, generate conversations and build a relationship but now they can actually sell to customers through social networks. This just goes to show how important it is for every business owner to use social media networking to help their company grow. Read the whole story at Internet Retailer magazine online.
