Facebook is testing a new “Want” button for online retailers, similar to the social network’s widely used “Like”, which consumers can use to add product images to an online wishlist, in a style similar to the fast-growing photo-sharing site Pinterest.
The pilot, which will make it easier for people to buy the items shared by their friends, is the latest in a series of site improvements released by Facebook in recent weeks as it attempts to find new revenue streams and recapture investors’ interest. Last month, Facebook made its first move into ecommerce when it added the ability for friends to buy each other gifts, such as cupcakes and Starbucks vouchers, through the site. Monday’s launch of what Facebook calls “Collections” will test three permutations of a Want, Collect or Like button for brands’ pages on the site.
Clicking one of these buttons will add the product image to a section of the user’s Timeline profile page. Similarly, Pinterest allows its users to “pin” images from its own site, and around the web, to their own virtual pinboard. Retailers working with Facebook on Collections include high-end department store Neiman Marcus, lingerie shop Victoria’s Secret, homewares group Pottery Barn and design site Fab.com. No date has been set for a wider rollout of the feature, which will not initially be a source of revenue for Facebook. But the company might allow brands to incorporate Wants into their advertising or tie users’ wishlists to its new Gifts service, to allow purchasing in the site.
Facebook said that Collections built on existing behaviour from brands and their fans. “We’ve seen that businesses often use pages to share information about their products through photo albums,” Facebook said. “Today, we are beginning a small test in which a few select businesses will be able to share information about their products through a feature called Collections. Collections can be discovered in News Feed, and 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.” Pinterest did not comment on the launch.
Retailers have seen a rapid rise in traffic derived from Pinterest, which has around 20m regular users and counts Japanese ecommerce giant Rakuten among the investors who valued the San Francisco-based company at $1.5bn earlier this year. However, shopping activity on Facebook has consistently fallen far short of the excited predictions of those who dubbed it “F-commerce”. Social networks have accounted for 1.3 per cent of total US ecommerce traffic so far in 2012, according to RichRelevance, which develops ecommerce tools for companies. Relative to other social networks, Facebook drives more traffic to retail websites, but consumers who arrive from Pinterest tend to spend more money.-
