US florist and gift retailer 1-800-Flowers.com has launched a rich media storefront on its Facebook fan page, and users of the social network can choose and order flowers and gifts without leaving the site.
The storefront has been provided by Alvenda, a commerce-enabled advertising network whose model is based on affiliate-like revenue sharing. In return for their slice, though, the company designs, builds and places the necessary Flash-based ‘Shoplet’ for the retailer.
“Your Alvenda program carries very little risk given the fact that we only profit when we generate profitable revenue for you,” says the firm. “We’re fast and self-sufficient. We can literally launch millions of revenue-generating stores for you in less than eight weeks with zero impact on your IT resources.”
The storefronts are also designed to be run as transactional ads on other sites. Revenue from sales is shared with the network, which in turn shares it with the sites that run the ads.
In May, 1-800-Flowers ran the same ‘Shoplet’ across the web as an ecommerce enabled banner ad in a campaign that ran around Mother’s Day. In a split test, the company found that the ecommerce-enabled ads delivered 41% more sales per impression and a 10.5 times lift in interaction rates compared with ordinary banner advertisements.
