In the Wall Street Journal Article "Merchants Push Sales Through Social Media; Early Adopters Add Shopping-Cart Apps to Fan Pages to Sell Items, Services" by Sarah Needleman details how merchants are using their Facebook and MySpace pages to attract purchases through offering sales and services to their fans. Fans will be able to see items for sale on the social media pages and then be directed to the company's website to purchase the items. This increases traffic for the company's main website, as well as gives incentives for people to become fans of different company's pages to receive special deals. Though sales through social media seem to be a great idea for many companies, it is more effective for company's who already have a large fan base. For companies who don't have many fans, they would have to combine marketing for their page and their sales as well to see any true profits. As seen with the article the company, Guitar Syndicate has seen an increase of 17% since their online social media sales offering has been offered, but in the same instance Sun & Ski Sports has only seen social media sales offering 1% to their online sales. There also is a fee for adding shopping cart applications, starting at $24.99 but with the possibility to increase if more items are being offered for sale. This is new territory that is being incorporated with social media sites and it is intriguing to see how consumers are and will react to it.
Adding shopping cart applications to social media sites is an intriguing topic because it seems to be one of the few untapped markets within social media. Now with it being offered by companies, there can be a mixture of excitement and also wary. Companies can be willing to add the applications since it can mean more traffic onto their actual website, as well as their social media page. But, as noted before, companies have to make sure that they already have enough fans to be profitable. Therefore, adding a shopping cart application could mean increased marketing henceforth increased costs the companies have to face. There is also the fee of adding a shopping cart application as well as Face book stating that they are going to have a 30% share of sales for various virtual goods. Companies, especially ones on a smaller scale, are going to have to weigh the pro and cons of adding this application. It could lead to greater online sales and fan traffic on their pages, but it could also mean financial headaches.
Pushing sales through social media is significant since now the majority of the population, whether in the United States, Europe, or anywhere else with constant access to the internet seems to be on social media sites. Now people are in a minority if they aren't on Facebook or Twitter, updating their status, or other checking their friend's pages. With adding shopping cart applications now people have access to the entire market without even having to look up from their phone. It does seem to be the way of the future, since online sales have only been increasing every year and every major company offering a website with purchasing options. Though shopping cart applications on social media sites can definitely be seen as an advantage to the consumer and to the companies, there can also be a backlash. Consumers are more vocal than ever and with allowing consumers to shop on sites like Facebook and MySpace the direct response of the consumer can be gained almost instantaneously. This means if a consumer has a great experience and loves their purchase they can post that, but it also means (more often than not) consumers can inform their dissatisfaction with a purchase or a company as well. With consumers having the ability to post their opinions the company's are facing a potential threat with bad word of mouth spreading as quickly as someone can press "post."
Perhaps, the biggest factor right now of adding shopping cart applications is the ambivalence of it. Since it is such a new aspect of social media, there are few companies who have true knowledge of it leading to great uncertainty. There is definitely a clear bonus for companies to incorporate it into their social media pages since it can easily, and somewhat cheaply, increase online sales and help promote the company. But, there is also the resistance of consumers feeling that companies are invading too much into their lives, as well as privacy issues regarding personal finances specifically with Facebook facing recent issues with their privacy policies. People don't want to have their identity stolen, especially on sites where they are their most personal connecting with family and friends. Overall, if the shopping cart application does increase in popularity and more companies adapt it there most likely won't be a lot of resistance, since the consumer can look at the potential of increasing the ease of shopping even more. Also companies who use it and the social media sites that incorporate can look forward to increased sales if shopping cart applications become popular. Though there can be some backlash, one can also look into the recent past and see that there was original backlash when MySpace was introduced or when Facebook changed their formatting, and now these things aren't even mentioned of anymore. But, only time can tell with shopping cart applications and how they will fare in the future.
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