Social Shopping

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At least 20 "very large general merchandise and electronics" retailers will be setting up transactional shops on Facebook in the next two months. While retailers like Sears and Threadless both let users add items to their shopping cart on Facebook;" never before have users been able to purchase goods without ever leaving Facebook's site as they will be able to soon. 1-800-Flowers is the first retailer to have contructred a free-standing virtual shop on Facebook, with more to follow in the coming weeks. Facebook, however, "has no current plans to organise the storefronts into an online mall, or to make money from them by either taxing the transactions that take place on its site, or by offering its own virtual currency."—Alisa Gould-Simon [Financial Times]