Facebook shoppers 'are mostly mums' - Telegraph.co.uk

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Facebook shoppers 'are mostly mums' - Telegraph.co.uk Apr 2nd 2012, 13:37 The flotation of Facebook is set to be the biggest ever by an internet company, with an expected valuation of up to $100bn. Photo: Getty Images While shopping on Facebook is still uncommon, with only 1.5 million of the social network's total 850 million members buying something via the site each month, the "overwhelming majority" of those who do are women. Christian Taylor, the co-founder and chief executive of Silicon Valley start-up Payvment, the most popular commerce platform on Facebook – which powers 80 per cent of all shopping on the site, told The Telegraph that most shoppers tend to be stay-at-home mothers shopping for "cute things" for their children. "The majority of people shopping on Facebook are women and most of them are stay-at-home mums. The most popular items bought on Facebook are by far baby clothes and little things like bows for children's hair. "I think Facebook has created an outlet for mothers to talk to other mums about what to buy for their children and share parenting tips. I imagine being a stay-at-home parent was an incredibly lonely job before social networks. The people shopping on Facebook are an incredibly similar crowd to those who play social games, such as Farmville." Taylor said that of the men who have shopped on the site, they tended to buy t-shirts and the most popular t-shirts were often cause-based shirts, such as tops raising money for cancer charities. He also told The Telegraph that the number of people shopping on Facebook was growing by 20 per cent every month and there are currently more than three million items for sale on the world's most popular social network. Commerce on Facebook is still small, with most vendors tending to be small to medium-sized businesses – rather than the major brands – who usually have a fan page on the site instead. People pay vendors directly for their goods, often using Paypal accounts. Taylor said he expects this system to eventually change and move to Facebook credits – which is currently how people pay for games on the site. Facebook takes a 30 per cent revenue cut from all games or in-game features bought on the site using its credits. Taylor said the margin would not be anywhere near as high when it came to vendors. Vendors use platforms like Payvment to power their e-shop, create a shop front and be part of a virtual shopping mall. This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters recommends: Donate to Wikileaks.

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