1-800-Flowers Opens First Facebook Store

Written by Igor Beuker on August 3rd, 2009 | 10 comments

We have been talking about the power of social commerce for a while. Now online flower retailer 1-800-Flowers has launched a transactional store on its Facebook page, allowing users to order gifts without leaving the social networking website.

The US florist and gift retailer 1-800-Flowers had it’s storefront made by Alvenda, a commerce-enabled advertising network whose model is based on affiliate-like revenue sharing. In return for their slice, though, the company designs, builds and places the necessary Flash-based ‘Shoplet’ for the retailer.

The storefronts are also designed to be run as transactional ads on other sites. Revenue from sales is shared with the network, which in turn shares it with the sites that run the ads.

In May 2009, 1-800-Flowers ran the same ‘Shoplet’ across the web as an ecommerce enabled banner ad in a campaign that ran around Mother’s Day. In a split test, the company found that the eCommerce-enabled ads delivered 41% more sales per impression and a 10.5 times lift in interaction rates compared with ordinary banner advertisements.

Is this a hype or a trend? I expect many other companies to follow this example the coming few years, so I would have to call it: a trend. Let’s wait and see. Shall we call it “closing the loop in social commerce” just for now?

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10 Comments

• Brendan says:

  August 3, 2009 at 19:48

  Nice post Igor, I like how you said “without ever having to leave the social networking site.” Because a lot of people don’t. So having the option to shop is enticing.

  Reply
• Igor Beuker says:

  August 3, 2009 at 20:21

  Thanks Brendan.

  Do you think many brands will follow this example?

  Cheers

  Igor

  Reply
  • Brendan says:

    August 4, 2009 at 21:47

    I’m surprised this is the first one. I’m sure there will be more.

    Reply
• yessneaker says:

  August 5, 2009 at 05:02

  really a great way for e-biz style, nice sample!-www.yessneaker.com

  Reply
• Wade says:

  August 5, 2009 at 06:00

  Thanks for the great post Igor! Wade, CEO Alvenda

  Reply
• Igor says:

  August 5, 2009 at 18:55

  @ Wade

  Nice to meet you. Please connect to me in some way, we might be able to do stuff together soon.

  LinkedIn (or otherwise) to stay out of the loop of spammers

  Cheers

  Igor

  Reply
• florists says:

  October 20, 2009 at 06:55

  800 flowers is absolutely genius for putting this deal together. They’re going to sell more roses than they ever have before.

  Reply
• E-Commerce Websites Use Facebook Fan Pages to Increase Sales says:

  February 16, 2010 at 15:34

  [...] 1-800-Flowers Opens First Facebook Store (viralblog.com) var addthis_language = 'en';var addthis_options = 'email, favorites, digg, delicious, myspace, google, facebook, reddit, live, more'; [...]

  Reply
• The State Of Social Commerce - says:

  May 20, 2011 at 12:32

  [...] next blow up. Perhaps that explains why 1-800 Flowers teamed up with Zuckerberg’s Facebook, launching the very first Facebook Store already back in [...]

  Reply
• Marketing Tweet says:

  July 16, 2011 at 03:55

  lol Twitter has got to be killing other social media websites

  Reply