Facebook lost E-commerce, where did the failure originate?

Facebook started letting businesses in on its platform last year, but recently, Bloomberg reported that, due to a lack of good user experience and activity, businesses have recently closed their Facebook online stores, Even North America's biggest gaming retailer, GameStop, with 3.5 million fans, has closed its Facebook storefront. While many people have been bullish and looking forward to Facebook as a new shopping platform, it appears that Facebook's e-commerce is not successful.

A big platform is not a guarantee of success

GameStop, the biggest gaming retailer in North America and retail giants Gapj.cpenney and Nordstrom, have opened online retail stores on Facebook, but have also disappeared on Facebook. It has been predicted that Facebook will become a new shopping site and that persuading Facebook users to shop on its platform should be a simple thing to do, especially if it grows fast enough for Facebook today to be more successful. Why? The following is a list of data from Facebook's prospectus to illustrate:

January active users reached 845 million (log in at least once a month).

22,011 years December, Facebook daily average active users reached 483 million

343% of global Internet users will visit Facebook regularly.

4Facebook's 2011-year revenue reached 3.71 billion U.S. dollars, up 88% year-on-year.

52,011 year net profit is 1 billion dollars.

In the 62,011 year December, the number of active subscribers using Facebook Mobile products was 425 million.

7 daily average user releases 2.7 billion like and comments.

More than 100 billion friends have been established on the 8Facebook.

9 Every active user makes Facebook earn 4.75 dollars a year.

Through that we can see that the Facebook platform is big, but why didn't Facebook push online retail share growth? Ashley Sheetz, vice president of GameStop Marketing and strategy, said in a telephone interview that GameStop's return on Facebook was unsatisfactory and that Facebook was more like a place to communicate with customers than sell things, so it could only be closed. At the same time, Ashley Sheetz also said that for most people, shopping on the GameStop web site is already very convenient, so the willingness to spend on the platform's larger Facebook page is not strong.

But Pinterest, a social-networking site, has risen rapidly in e-commerce, and Pinterest has tens of millions of dollars to get membership fees from retailers. So what is the reason for Facebook and Pinterest to be so big?

The root of the failure

Apart from the core notes and sharing photos, Facebook is a very bad design. As a user, it may be annoying to click on any link outside the standard view. Although users started using the product five years ago, it still makes you feel like you don't have a sense of belonging.

1. Unsuitable design:

Many product users are accustomed to the use of later, but Facebook, in addition to the time line features and transport interface, it is confusing, and if you want to find a product on Facebook, many users can not easily find. Facebook's search box, for example, can only be found by name and brand (see chart below)

And Pinterest is more convenient. (see figure below).

Knowing that famous brands spend millions of of dollars a year on advertising channels is hoping to boost their Facebook influence, but their brand pages are less functional, and when users want to know about the product, you'll find that you'll spend a lot of time looking at their promotional materials. So Facebook's design, while facilitating private interaction between friends, has hindered users from looking for products that are of interest.

2. Unable to group friends

Many users don't want to share logs and photos with people who are looking for advice, and Facebook has no easy way to group different people, while Pinterest is easy to group with friends. For example, parents and family members are divided into a separate group, because some users do not want parents to know what they are buying, but they are willing to share this information to the Pinterest of like-minded friends. As a result, Facebook's inability to group is one of the reasons for the failure.

3. User privacy issues

When the user's daily shopping habits are shared with the retailer by Facebook, personal information is also shared with the retailer, and users will not feel comfortable with the product's promotional messages when they read the news. Because personal privacy is violated. As a result, user dissatisfaction with privacy issues is likely to spread across the network, affecting all online retailing. At this point, Facebook, which has a lot of personal user information, will face a choice: to maintain its own business value, to provide a lot of user information to retailers, or to protect user privacy? For this, users are not happy to buy things on Facebook.

What should Facebook do?

If Facebook wants to develop good e-commerce, it is first to redesign the product, focus on the user experience, and make it easy for users to group. One group is about personal information, the other is about e-commerce and shopping, and so on.

Facebook also needs to be more focused on the platform. For example, why should acquires be a subdivision of the mini Facebook site instead of appearing on the Facebook platform as an application? To know that Facebook is going to be a social open platform in the future.

At last

Unless the product is redesigned and the platform is planned, Facebook can only be a social networking site where users share photos and information, handing out the most lucrative e-commerce cakes to rivals such as Pinterest. And the abandonment of E-commerce Facebook is not a perfect platform to meet people's needs.

The original text comes from:

Gamestop to J.C Penney shut Facebook stores:retail

Facebook is losing commerce