Facebook announced a plethora of new retail partnerships for the company’s most recent acquisition, Karma. The company acquired the gift giver app this past May and has since rebranded it Facebook Gifts.
Lee Linden, Karma’s co-founder and now head of Facebook Gifts, made the announcements at a press conference at FAO Schwarz in New York. The new gifting service is a virtual one stop shop for Facebook’s massive audience, as a way for users to conveniently share and receive gifts from over one hundred of their favorite brands directly from the site. Users will be able to personalize gifts with a message, pick a card, and even send gift options for the recipient to choose. They can also take advantage of Facebook’s most prized social staple items — birthdays, interests and events are readily available when deciphering what and when to give.
Facebook hopes the move will incentivize more consumers to get in the habit of purchasing directly from the platform, raising the company’s worth and garnering more ad business. The company makes a percentage of sales made through Facebook Gifts. The advertising opportunities are yet to be defined but obviously have great potential, for instance with targeted ads that essentially appear inside a virtual store. Another valuable aspect is the additional information the site will acquire such as home addresses and credit card data from users that haven’t yet been forthcoming with that information.
Facebook highlighted how new brands and services on board include babyGap, Fab, Brookstone, Dean & Deluca, L’Occitane, Lindt, ProFlowers, Random House, Inc. and NARS Cosmetics, as well as subscription services Hulu Plus, Pandora and Rdio. The service officially rolls out in the coming weeks leading up to the holidays and will include apps for iOS and Android.
Source: Tech Crunch
