Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) recently announced that within two-weeks its Gift service will come to an end. The service will end on August 12, so as to make way for other e-commerce service on the site. The company is testing other ways of making customers buy products through their website.
Rise and fall of Facebook Gift service
The social networking giant had introduced for the Gift service in 2012 using which users could send to their near and dear ones presents on various occasions especially birthday. The Gift shop has a variety of real-life presents, which include chocolates, cards, cupcakes, socks, gourmet ice cream, Andy Warhol prints, flowers, organic dog toys, spa packages and so on. Users can make the purchase simply by clicking on the gift icon on the Facebook Page of their friends. This was the first real foray into e-commerce by Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB).
A year later, the social networker had stopped selling the physical goods altogether and was selling only the gift cards from more than 100 merchants. These include many big names like Starbucks Corp, Best Buy Co Inc and Barnes & Noble Inc.
“We’ll be using everything we learned from Gifts to explore new ways to help businesses and developers drive sales on the web, on mobile, and directly on Facebook,” the company said in an emailed statement on Tuesday.
‘Buy’ may replace ‘Gift’
Facebook Gift service was the first experiment by the company with e-commerce, which has not been a success, and hence the company may plan of replacing it with ‘Buy’ button. The difference between the two is that the users can buy real goods and not just the gift cards. Also, they no longer need to leave the screen for completing the transaction.
Few days back, it was revealed that a new ‘Buy’ button is being tested by Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB), which would enable users to make on-site purchases from an e-commerce giant without requiring them to leave the site. It will be possible for the users to purchase a product directly from the merchant by clicking the Buy button on ads and Page posts on their PCs and mobiles. The users can save their credit card information with Facebook which they can make use of at the checkout for making the payment.
 recently announced that within two-weeks its Gift service will come to an end. The service will end on August...){kind=link}