Facebook e-commerce-Reality
Post sparked by a conversation in a thread yesterday:
I know that there are those who piss and moan that FB is not a place to sell, but I will have to partially disagree with you. I have multiple clients that DO make money on FB.
I will explain. I have a client who trains women for professional tournaments in the fitness niche. She already has built up a brand, but had no FB page. Like most, she had a personal page and posted all biz related items there.
I set her up a fan page and helped her grow her page to about 2k fans. Now after talking with her I knew she wanted to sell apparel but did not want to be bothered. So, being in the "merch" biz, I developed a solution for her...and the best part was that it cost her nothing out of pocket.
Tools used: photoshop, ejunkie, html editor, outsourcing to screen printer.
I worked with her on a design for a tshirt. Once established, I photoshopped it onto a tshirt and created a really great looking offer. I then used MY ejunkie account to list the item, and placed it all on a custom iframe tab in FB.
We did this as a PRESELL. Meaning that we were taking orders for a set amount of time then shutting it off. What this allowed was for people to order, and we used their money to purchase the product.
I tracked everything in an excel spreadsheet for her and built in my fees. So, for example, a tshirt I buy finished for $7 I sell to her for $12. She/We sell online for $22. I make $5, she makes $10 per shirt. When the presell was over, I convinced her to invest the additional $10 into more tshirts which I still make $5 per on.
**I have a screen printing company I exclusively work with and send all my work to. No screen costs, set up costs, and its close by so no shipping**
The first order we sold 76 shirts. $1672 was the total before the paypal fees(which comes out of her profit, not mine). We ended up ordering the 76 shirts plus an additional 60 which were for inventory.
So I made $680 right off the bat, then comes the shipping. My shipping and handling fees had packaging, shipping and time built in, so on average I made $2.25 per item. Another initial $170+ dollars with the rest coming as other items sold.
We have done the above now for 4 months with each month bringing a new item. We have sold over $15k during that time...on FB alone. These items were not on her website.
Now as I write this it seems like a lot, but ultimately I had maybe an hour to an hour and a half into each promotion, and I paid someone $10 an hour to package an mail out everything...which barely cut into my fulfillment fees.
Most of my clients are in the entertainment field (musicians), so I have also used ejunkie for music downloads right on FB. All sales go through my account and I pay-out once a month. Yes, they all use itunes, cdbaby, amazon mp3 etc, but this is another avenue and it IS profitable. The advantage for them is that although there are apps like reverbnation that allow them to sell songs on FB, my system allows them to sell digital downloads as well as apparel, physical cd's etc.
So my point to all this is more just to show that it can be done. The person/company needs a brand of course as well as a buying audience, but people are spending money on FB. It's still early and not everyone is comfortable doing it, but it is becoming an option for many.
I certainly don't expect anyone to copy what I'm am doing, it may be somewhat "ghetto" in its implementation, but it has worked wonders for me. E-junkie has been great, and it's secure shopping cart is still independent from FB so I think that helps.
In the end, as with anything, its all about solving problems. Musicians are always looking for ways to sell, as are those in the entertainment niche. My fitness client wanted to sell apparel but was dead set against handling and processing orders. I solved those problems, and in exchange I get a cut of everything sold...and they are happy to pay it because it comes out before they see it. I pay them.
So think outside the box a little, whether its on FB, websites, or just in general. Everyone has problems that they are willing to pay to have solved, just find them and solve them.
I'm not touting the advantages of FB in general, just that there are those who use it effectively, like anything else. But if I had just read all the negative FB commerce posts I would have never tried it. So sometimes you just got to go with your gut and block out the naysayers.
Well this turned out to be waaaay longer than expected...too much coffee and crack so early in the morning.
~keith
I know that there are those who piss and moan that FB is not a place to sell, but I will have to partially disagree with you. I have multiple clients that DO make money on FB.
I will explain. I have a client who trains women for professional tournaments in the fitness niche. She already has built up a brand, but had no FB page. Like most, she had a personal page and posted all biz related items there.
I set her up a fan page and helped her grow her page to about 2k fans. Now after talking with her I knew she wanted to sell apparel but did not want to be bothered. So, being in the "merch" biz, I developed a solution for her...and the best part was that it cost her nothing out of pocket.
Tools used: photoshop, ejunkie, html editor, outsourcing to screen printer.
I worked with her on a design for a tshirt. Once established, I photoshopped it onto a tshirt and created a really great looking offer. I then used MY ejunkie account to list the item, and placed it all on a custom iframe tab in FB.
We did this as a PRESELL. Meaning that we were taking orders for a set amount of time then shutting it off. What this allowed was for people to order, and we used their money to purchase the product.
I tracked everything in an excel spreadsheet for her and built in my fees. So, for example, a tshirt I buy finished for $7 I sell to her for $12. She/We sell online for $22. I make $5, she makes $10 per shirt. When the presell was over, I convinced her to invest the additional $10 into more tshirts which I still make $5 per on.
**I have a screen printing company I exclusively work with and send all my work to. No screen costs, set up costs, and its close by so no shipping**
The first order we sold 76 shirts. $1672 was the total before the paypal fees(which comes out of her profit, not mine). We ended up ordering the 76 shirts plus an additional 60 which were for inventory.
So I made $680 right off the bat, then comes the shipping. My shipping and handling fees had packaging, shipping and time built in, so on average I made $2.25 per item. Another initial $170+ dollars with the rest coming as other items sold.
We have done the above now for 4 months with each month bringing a new item. We have sold over $15k during that time...on FB alone. These items were not on her website.
Now as I write this it seems like a lot, but ultimately I had maybe an hour to an hour and a half into each promotion, and I paid someone $10 an hour to package an mail out everything...which barely cut into my fulfillment fees.
Most of my clients are in the entertainment field (musicians), so I have also used ejunkie for music downloads right on FB. All sales go through my account and I pay-out once a month. Yes, they all use itunes, cdbaby, amazon mp3 etc, but this is another avenue and it IS profitable. The advantage for them is that although there are apps like reverbnation that allow them to sell songs on FB, my system allows them to sell digital downloads as well as apparel, physical cd's etc.
So my point to all this is more just to show that it can be done. The person/company needs a brand of course as well as a buying audience, but people are spending money on FB. It's still early and not everyone is comfortable doing it, but it is becoming an option for many.
I certainly don't expect anyone to copy what I'm am doing, it may be somewhat "ghetto" in its implementation, but it has worked wonders for me. E-junkie has been great, and it's secure shopping cart is still independent from FB so I think that helps.
In the end, as with anything, its all about solving problems. Musicians are always looking for ways to sell, as are those in the entertainment niche. My fitness client wanted to sell apparel but was dead set against handling and processing orders. I solved those problems, and in exchange I get a cut of everything sold...and they are happy to pay it because it comes out before they see it. I pay them.
So think outside the box a little, whether its on FB, websites, or just in general. Everyone has problems that they are willing to pay to have solved, just find them and solve them.
I'm not touting the advantages of FB in general, just that there are those who use it effectively, like anything else. But if I had just read all the negative FB commerce posts I would have never tried it. So sometimes you just got to go with your gut and block out the naysayers.
Well this turned out to be waaaay longer than expected...too much coffee and crack so early in the morning.
~keith
-
Rashell -
[ 1 ] Thanks
{{ DiscussionBoard.errors[4160326].message }} -