Since the appearance of the term Facebook Commerce a few years ago, the word has been making a hole in the vocabulary of people and professionals in the sector. However, Facebook Commerce encompasses in its definition different meanings that are usually used without any distinction and that often lead to confusion. From Social-Buy.com, we have proposed to delve into the definition and differentiation of the different forms of Facebook Commerce that exist today.

But first we must contextualize the birth of the term Facebook Commerce. In the same way that the sales platforms migrated to the internet giving rise to the so-called e-commerce, the online sales spaces began to have a presence in social networks, conferring the so-called Social Commerce. Facebook Commerce is a part of Social Commerce, which consists of the integration of points of sale within the favorite social network of users: Facebook. Now, there are different levels of Facebook Commerce that we will comment next:

The Storefront or showcase

It is the most static version of Facebook Commerce. These types of solutions allow you to organize a complete catalog of products or services within a page on Facebook, that is, to integrate the showcase of offer within Facebook, so that, when the consumer wants to make a purchase, he is redirected to the online store traditional. As a result, the purchase process is not made entirely on Facebook, but the moment of product acquisition takes place through the traditional e-commerce channel.

The Facebook Store or Store on Facebook

The Facebook Store is an evolution of the storefront that allows you to complete the purchase process on Facebook. In this way it allows to integrate a catalog of products or services at the same time that it facilitates that the users can buy without having to leave the social network.

Smart Facebook store or “smart” Facebook stores

In the last level, there are applications such as Social-Buy.com that not only integrate the entire purchase process within Facebook but also offer a personalized shopping experience based on the profile of each user. This type of solutions are nourished by the information that users register and share through Facebook, to recommend the products that best suit their tastes and interests.

Logically, the main difference between these three responses to Facebook Commerce does not lie in the place where the products are purchased, but in the meaning and repercussions of the user experience. The storefront and the store on Facebook take advantage of Facebook to bring the offer to people through the social network where they spend more time. However, both types ignore the main asset offered by this network: information. In contrast, the so-called Smart Facebook Store draws on the social graph of the user, that is, the set of social connections that each one develops around him within the participative spaces of the network, to convert these new points of sale into interactive spaces that also allow to adapt the offer to each consumer.

Thus, it deals with different solutions to the new reality of Facebook Commerce, which severely condition the user experience. Understanding them and being able to properly use the ideal solution in each case is one of the future challenges for companies and entrepreneurs.