What Facebook Must Do To Solve E-commerce & Win

eCommerce
Written By Rick Watson

Facebook must do only two things with eCommerce.

  • Help us shop together more easily.

  • Entertain us.

Otherwise it risks being e-commerce that happens to be on Facebook." Which we need, kinda, but ... not as much as the first two things.

To get past the surface level headline, you need to understand what's unique about Facebook.

Connecting to others: Facebook should not be the laggard in social shopping. Instead of just putting stores online, it needs something unique in a way that helps groups of people shop together. Imagine the applications for events, clubs, parties, gatherings, or just hanging with friends, you know all those things we used to be able to do pre-Corona.

I haven't seen anything yet in their plans which suggests this direction.

Entertain us: I liked watching the show Mr. Selfridge, perhaps fictionalized based on the life of the famous UK retailer Selfridge's. Part PT Barnum, part commercial mogul, what Selfridge's understood was that a retailer needed to put on a show.

Modern eCommerce has gotten too boring. Like live sports, you need to give people a reason to show up now and be entertained in a way that can bring a brand to life and drive sales.

I'm hopeful their Live Shopping features can help with this.

Rick Watson

Rick Watson founded RMW Commerce Consulting after spending 20+ years as a technology entrepreneur and operator exclusively in the eCommerce industry with companies like ChannelAdvisor, BarnesandNoble.com, Merchantry, and Pitney Bowes.

Watson’s work today is centered on supporting investors and management teams incubating and growing direct-to-consumer businesses. Most recently, in partnership with WHP Global, Rick was a critical resource in architecting the WHP+ platform, a new turnkey direct to consumer digital e-commerce platform that powers AnneKlein.com and JosephAbboud.com.

Watson also hosts a weekly podcast, Watson Weekly, where he shares an unbiased, unfiltered expert take on the retail sector’s biggest players.

In the past year alone, Rick has spoken at many in-person and virtual events as well as podcasts on topics ranging from retail/ecom to supply chain/logistics and even digital grocery including CommerceNext IRL, ASCM Connect, and Retail Innovation Conference.

https://www.rmwcommerce.com/
Previous

If Amazon’s Supply Chain Normalizes - Efficiency Will Be Gained

Next

Walmart and thredUP partner - why it makes sense for both