ChannelAdvisor have launched a Facebook Commerce Index, which tracks the trends in page fans for online retailers and uses that data to deduce best practices for online retailer fan acquisition.
Originally the Facebook Commerce Index launched with US retailers in February this year but now they’ve added a Facebook Commerce Index on UK retailers.
The first UK Facebook Commerce Index highlights fashion retailers as the most prolific Facebook businesses. Topshop is leading the way in the UK, with more than 1,400,000 Facebook fans; almost 50 percent more than the second placed brand, New Look. With River Island, ASOS, Next and Net-A-Porter. 13 out of the top 25 retailers on Facebook are fashion based outlets.
On average, we saw a fan growth rate of approximately 16% amongst the UK retailers we’re tracking, but a few companies achieved a much higher number.
ChannelAdvisor reveal that “Jessops grew at 135% this month, albeit on a relatively small base of 944 fans. It looks like they were running a Facebook-only competition called ‘My Perfect Moment’ in which people were invited to submit a photographs of their, well, perfect moment….!”
It looks like competition incentives work well to add Facebook fans. Chemist Direct, a a ChannelAdvisor customer and Top 100 UK retailer also ran a competition in conjunction with Low Cost Holidays which gave them a 40% boost in fans.
Turning Facebook fans into paying customers is what counts though, and whilst the ChannelAdvisor Facebook Commerce Index is new they’re already drawing some conclusions on best practices for attracting fans which are:
- Implementing like buttons on product pages
- Linking to FB Page throughout site
- Integrating FB Page in all outbound messages (email, etc.)
- Promoting FB page with promotions, exclusive content, etc.
The Facebook Commerce Index and future tips on how to turn Facebook fans into paying customers will all be published on the ChannelAdvisor Facebook Commerce Strategies blog.
