Facebook the Sequel: Like, Want, Buy

Apparently drawing inspiration from Pinterest, Facebook is trialing a new "Want" button that would allow its users to add products to a virtual wish list. An accompanying "Buy" link creates an f-commerce vehicle.

According to an email from Facebook sent to PC Magazine, the social networking site is currently engaging in a "small test in which a few select businesses will be able to share information about their products through a feature called Collections."

The Collections feature lets users on Facebook engage with items by "liking," "collecting" or "wanting" them. Hitting the "want" button on an item prompts a "Why do you want this?" query bubble. Once the response is provided, a picture of the desired product along with the "Want" message become visible on the Timelines of their friends. Friends can then hit their own "want" button, or even make a purchase through a buy link that directs users to the retailer’s transactional site.

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"People will be able to engage with these collections and share things they are interested in with their friends. People can click through and buy these items off of Facebook," Facebook said in a statement released to Reuters.

The seven retailers in the test include Pottery Barn, Wayfair, Victoria’s Secret, Michael Kors, Neiman Marcus, Smith Optics and Fab.com, the company said.

A spokeswoman told Reuters that during the test Facebook isn’t receiving any fee for referring users to e-commerce sites. Nonetheless, with Facebook struggling to make money through advertising, some said the Pinterest-like tool may provide a path to e-commerce.

Robert W. Baird analyst Colin Sebastian told Reuters that in addition to potentially collecting a transaction fee, retailers might also pay Facebook to promote products featured on users’ wish lists, similar to how Facebook’s current ads work.

"Thinking about how large they are as a platform and how engaged people are, there are lots of levers they haven’t pulled yet in terms of monetization," he said.

Writing for Mashable.com, Todd Wasserman called the feature "a fairly transparent hedge against Pinterest," which currently lacks a buy feature. A Facebook spokesperson indicated that the program does not employ Instagram, the photo-sharing social website Facebook acquired in early September. Mr. Wasserman added, "However, it’s easy to see how in the future the features could be added to a brand’s Instagram feed as well."

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Discussion Questions

What do you think of Facebook’s “Want” button and “Collection” feature? How could a Pinterest-like tool translate into F-commerce?

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Gene Hoffman
Gene Hoffman
11 years ago

The pursuit of “living well” is endless — and Facebook’s “Want” button and “Collection” feature are part of the everlasting and quest-ful passing parade.

These new Facebook features will translate fairly well into F-commerce until some new dynamic is created or discovered.

Ralph Jacobson
Ralph Jacobson
11 years ago

I think these social channels still have a ton of “settling” to occur. Pinterest “interest” is already in question. Facebook, although continuing to grow, may have seen its most active days already. I think the world is ready for the “next big thing” in social media. Let’s wait about five minutes to see what it will be.

Max Goldberg
Max Goldberg
11 years ago

The primary consumer and retailer complaint about Pinterest is that it does not allow consumers to purchase from its pages. Facebook would seem to solve that problem, if consumers are willing to use FB like they use Pinterest. We still need to know the price FB will extract from retailers for referring customers. With one billion users, this could be a retail game changer.

Dan Frechtling
Dan Frechtling
11 years ago

Similar to past trials (i.e. Offers), Facebook is opening a free new vehicle to a select group of beta advertisers. At the same time, it’s emphasizing the user experience benefits.

It’s a great learning opportunity for Facebook, which needs new revenue streams, and advertisers, who need new measures of response and interest.

Now that Likes are monetizable at at a rate of $5-$100s per promoted post, look for more “free” tests to find the next pay-for-performance vehicle. Another notable here is the query bubble that gathers product feedback from users and provides an additional survey benefit.

David Dorf
David Dorf
11 years ago

This approach is probably the best way for FB to monetize e-commerce. We’ve already seen that a complete duplication of the catalog within FB is not the right approach. It’s much better to incorporate the social features of the platform, and the “want” and “buy” buttons seem to do that.

Zel Bianco
Zel Bianco
11 years ago

Facebook needs to generate revenue so the want/collection feature is a logical step towards e-commerce. It is smart of Facebook to do this as they have such a far reach around the world that the revenue generated in fees has the potential for being extremely large. This leads me to two questions: Who should pay the fees (retailers or consumers) and will consumers use Facebook to make purchases?

Cathy Hotka
Cathy Hotka
11 years ago

This sounds like an interesting way for Facebook to not only create a new revenue stream, but also gain further information about members. And since younger people seem to have few qualms about sharing personal information….

Shep Hyken
Shep Hyken
11 years ago

It’s impressive how Facebook has and continues to create their revenue model. This is actually a win/win/win for Facebook, their advertisers, and the customers. Revenue comes from advertisers who can narrow down their target customer based on even better criteria. And, many potential customers won’t mind hearing from these companies because they are selling what the customer really wants. In the end, the Facebook customer doesn’t have to put their “want” or “collection” in their public profile. So, it’s a form of opt-in advertising.

Joel Rubinson
Joel Rubinson
11 years ago

I think this is big. It moves social media into shopping path to purchase which gives it a remarkable new way of targeting advertising at the moment it matters most.

Bill Hanifin
Bill Hanifin
11 years ago

Imagine if a crowd-sourcing approach to sharing wants were applied and discounts or other special offers were given to the people who sparked a big chain of want activity on FB? Akin to recognizing the influencers, rewards could be given to those that identify a cool new product and trigger demand or just enthusiastic buyers into action.

How about a Groupon-like feature that marries to the want button? Or a partnership with Groupon?

Anything is possible, but the introduction of the want button is clearly a good step forward towards building a second revenue stream for FB behind the main advertising engine.

Camille P. Schuster, Ph.D.
Camille P. Schuster, Ph.D.
11 years ago

Facebook needs to find a way to demonstrate value to the business community that is compatible with users’ desire to just share information with friends and businesses’ desire to generate consumer purchases. Only if Facebook is able to live with the systems and processes to compete with Amazon will this work. Then Facebook will find themselves with two different models to manage while serving both consumer groups. Wait and watch is probably the best advice for now.

Doug Garnett
Doug Garnett
11 years ago

Facebook continues to search for revenue magic. But we should be wary of features that require mass adoption to succeed, but which are only driven by an advertiser desire — not filling any significant consumer need.

The main challenge for retailers everywhere is that social media is, by its fundamental design, always going to be limited to impact among a very narrow portion of the target audience. It’s always worth investigating, but never worth as much effort as the “everybody uses social” hype would suggest.

In reality, most people have social accounts. Only a tiny number have enough connection with commercial activity to be worth spending time and money on them.

Matthew Keylock
Matthew Keylock
11 years ago

I like it. They have to continue to evolve the value for the ecosystem (users, brands, shareholders! — and in the right priority order). This seems like a sensible step and a good approach to doing it.

I suggest the measurement of the program includes the right lens on the user/fan as well as the brand and financial view!

Jeff King
Jeff King
11 years ago

A cross site, brand, and unified ‘want’ list and/or ‘own’ list is something that could be incredibly powerful for targeting. Look for additional ‘verbs’ to continue to be created around commerce from Facebook that will essentially be creating the ‘Facebook commerce graph’.

Lee Kent
Lee Kent
11 years ago

In order for me to ‘want’ something on FB I must be looking at a FB page that has the goods. In most cases, if I click on the item I can go right to the site and buy the item. This tells me that the ‘want’ button has little value. The ‘Collection’ idea has a lot more potential. I recently worked on a start-up with a similar concept that was way cool, so I can definitely see it. The start-up was tabled, but the concept still has legs.

Mike Osorio
Mike Osorio
11 years ago

With much of the Millennial generation (and many of us baby boomers as well) living their lives on FB, this is a really cool idea to monitize the already common behavior of liking items, brands, etc. I think they are on to something here and I applaud them for trying new ideas. One or more of them will certainly hit.