Facebook sure does love these developer spotlights, and for good reason. It gives the platform a chance to continually sell the benefits of Open Graph implementation to their users and developers. So far, we’ve seen how Open Graph drove traffic for Foodspotting and various video apps. Now we’re seeing how Open Graph can impact the world of online commerce.
Fab.com, for those unaware, is an online designer product retailer. They sell the kind of fancy home decor products that you would see at a retail outlet like Pier 1 Imports. It’s the kind of Web site that would have my mother lost for hours window shopping if it was a retail outlet.
Anyway, Fab.com introduced the Like and Share links on their Web site back in August 2011. This was all done to encourage friends to discuss products on the Web site and maybe even drive up sales with recommendations. A perfectly logical move since shopping is a social experience and if my time at the local mall is any indication, people love shopping for designer products in groups.
Then in January of this year, they integrated Open Graph into the core shopping experience. Like with other Open Graph implementations, it made shopping experience far more social by allowing users to share their purchases and favorite products on their Timeline.
Getting people to share what they buy online is always a chore though. There are certain times when you don’t want people to know that you’re buying something or where you’re shopping. Fab.com makes the prospect of sharing your purchases a little easier by offering customers up to $10 in credit a month for just sharing.
This all goes back to the core shopping experience. Fab.com features a live Feed that lists all the purchases and faves made by their users. Some are listed as just “A Fab User” but others allow the site to display their username and Facebook profile photo alongside their purchases/favorites. Users can also comment on favorites/purchases made by other customers which brings the social experience from Facebook onto the site proper.
As an aside: For those worried about privacy concerns, you can turn off social sharing anytime you like. You can also edit what kind of items show up in your public faves/purchase feed allowing you to make discreet purchases of any “adult” items.
As with any of these developer spotlights, they always love to point out how much any particular site has grown since adopting Open Graph. Fab.com is like all the others in that it’s seen its referral traffic double. It has also seen its membership grow from 1.8 million users to 3.2 million users.
Do you feel that online shopping can become more social due to platforms like Facebook? How do you feel about sharing your purchases online? Let us know in the comments.