New Facebook Feature Could Make Them Online Shopping Destination
By Melony Roy
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) - Facebook has been testing ways to get people to buy stuff on its platform, and now it's rolling out a new shopping feature to connect people to brands and products.
The social network is testing the new ad experience called "Canvas." After clicking on an ad, people will see a fast-loading, full screen experience where they can browse a variety of products.
Local advertising expert Annie Heckenberger says the network wants to give you more to keep you there longer:
"It's October which means people are going to start thinking about holidays and buying more. I'm guessing that Facebook is the first of several platforms that are going to be making announcements like this"
Final payments aren't made on Facebook, so the network isn't competing directly with advertisers.
"I think that Facebook is adding a shopping section to make thing easier for the user," Heckenberger says, "to make the overall web experience friction-less, so they don't have to leave Facebook and they're already spending something like 20 minutes a day on average in the U.S. just within Facebook, and I'm sure Facebook would like a few more minutes of your time."
The items that appear will be based on which Pages the users have liked as well as content being sold in Facebook Groups that they're part of.
"What's interesting to me as a Facebook user is when I click that tab I'm going to be able to search for shoes, coats, sweater, pants and I'll see a number of labels and brands so as a consumer or shoppers that interesting to me."
But is this a good move for brands?
"Some might say 'It's great, I'm in the presence of other brands and somebody who might not shop my label might discover me now. Others may say this is not good because you're introducing my loyal custom to all these other options"
The new feature seems to be aimed at brands with bigger marketing budgets, like Target and Neiman Marcus.
"I would be very surprised if this did not generate more ad dollars for Facebook because what's happening when you basically build a catalog on a platform the consumer can't resist paging through," Heckenberger says, "which extends the time they spend on the site so now Facebook's ad unit can go out to advertisers and say hey guess what more people are spending more minutes on our platforms than anywhere else why are you not spending here or you need to spend here"
