Zibaba To Launch Affiliate Marketing Ecommerce Storefront for Facebook Pages

Facebook ecommerce storefront provider and preferred developer consultant Zibaba is launching an affiliate store front program for Facebook Pages at the end of January. Affiliate marketers will be able to choose items from any existing Zibaba merchant, agree to a revenue sharing or CPA system, and sell these products from a storefront on their own Facebook Page.

Merchants and affiliates both pay Zibaba a monthly fee to access the earning potential of the affiliate program which is unavailable on free Facebook storefronts like Payvment or web storefronts including BigCommerce .

Page storefronts help brands monetize their Likes. Directing these fans off of Facebook in order to make purchases raises a barrier to conversion, so Pages are starting to add full checkout functionality to their Pages instead of merely providing a catalog. Payvment has gained significant traction these year, passing the 40,000 retailer milestone with 250 new businesses adding its storefront each day. Though an affiliate program has been on Payvment’s roadmap for at least four months, the company’s storefronts are currently only for merchants.

Zibaba is seeking to capitalize on this opportunity by allowing affiliate marketers to offer a selection of products which appeal to their audience and earn money for bringing business to merchants. Zibaba’s VP of Business Development and Investor Relations Michael Katz tells us that “Payvment has laid the foundation of this road, but we think there’s room for a lot of other stores.”

Similar to affiliate portals outside of Facebook such as ClickBank and ShareASale, merchants offer an incentive to affiliates such as 25% of revenue or $2.00 per lead. Affiliates then leverage their existing Facebook audience or send traffic to their branded storefront through advertising. Zibaba charges affiliates and merchants $20-$100 a month depending on their number of Likes and how many products they want to sell.

For consumers, the storefronts are easy to browse and search. Social features include the ability for users to Like and comment on products, and publish these actions to their stream. If users Like the Page hosting the storefront, they can receive a 10% discount on their purchases.

Users can’t currently build a single shopping cart across different Zibaba stores the way Payvment’s persistent shopping cart works, but Katz says Zibaba plans to add this feature. Each store’s individual shopping cart won’t be cleared if users navigate away or log out, though.

The fifteen-person, Tel Aviv-based Zibaba team received some funding two and a half years ago, and have been developing Facebook apps and providing Page management services since. The company is now seeking $2 to $4 million in additional funding. They plan to use the money on branding and marketing to enlarge their merchant base from its current 20 stores and attract affiliate marketers. We’ll be following Zibaba to see whether it can establish a niche for itself, or if it will be pushed out by larger competitors.

Update: To be clear, users add delivery details within Facebook, but are directed to PayPal to enter payment information, meaning Zibaba isn’t a truly self-contained Facebook storefront. Thanks to Ann for the tip.

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10 Responses to “Zibaba To Launch Affiliate Marketing Ecommerce Storefront for Facebook Pages”

  1. Ann says:

    Zibaba’s Facebook store solution does not support purchasing within Facebook and instead redirects your customers off Facebook to PayPal to complete a purchase.

  2. Josh Constine says:

    @Ann: Thanks for the tip, Ann. I’ve updated the article with the following information. “To be clear, users add delivery details within Facebook, but are directed to PayPal to enter payment information, meaning Zibaba isn’t a truly self-contained Facebook storefront. Thanks to Ann for the tip.”

  3. Vizz Media says:

    F Commerce is here to stay. This was a guessed road block which the F team has successfully passed! With Mobile & Social Media hand-in-hand, there’s no stopping!

  4. Deborah Cohen says:

    I already purchased through zibaba store from within facebook and I loved it!
    You do not go out from facebook.
    Zibaba has their own Paypal platform.

  5. John says:

    Using payvment is an extremely limited approach to ecommerce within facebook.

  6. Josh Constine says:

    @John: Are there Facebook ecommerce options you find less restrictive?

  7. Eugene says:

    check out ecwid – very nice eCommerce platform with complete Facebook integration. I use it for one of my client and like it.
    Check out http://www.facebook.com/GulnaraTsiklauri
    - Art Store tab

  8. Hans says:

    I guess this is something we all have been waiting for. With so many active users of Facebook, we should expect this to grow rapidly, and creating a fan page for all small businesses enevitable.

  9. John says:

    Yes, there is a company that will build a custom app specifically for your company that doesn’t alter your existing ecommerce. So, you don’t have to use a modified platform or transfer anything to a new ecommerce platform. From talking with them, it costs somewhere between $500 and $1,500. bargain if you ask me.

  10. Social Commerce Spotlight: Zibaba partners with Shopify to offer social stores for all | SMI says:

    [...] began providing an affiliate store front program for Facebook Pages at the beginning of the year, helping merchants monetize ‘likes’ and [...]

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