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Brands opening social network stores on facebook (F-commerce) is the latest must have for the go-head retailer but there are several very real constraints that they should be aware of in this new and very different environment.

I suspect it will follow an evolution to where we have a slew of companies taking advantage of the virality and social graph data to spam users with offers, updates, news etc … and this could possibly have a negative effect on people’s willingness to sign up in the first place (all research shows that people react negatively to this type of activity on facebook).

The current applications that allow for in-app e-commerce (ASOS for example) allow you to buy using real cash. I think it will be hugely interesting to see whether facebook offers a version of its credits program for real-world goods with a lower rev share than their current 30%.
The creation of an app within the facebook framework (using facebook connect) is fairly straight forward, but it will be interesting to see what level of regulation facebook imposes as the market grows.

This is a brave new world but needs very careful thinking to deliver a real revenue stream for retailers.

Mark Cullen