Facebook aims at local SMEs with new Deals platform

Social networking giant Facebook has moved squarely into the SMEs market with a new function that will allow companies to deliver deals and products to users through the Facebook Places location platform.

The company has also announced new methods to make mobile more social, including adding a single login feature and APIs for companies, allowing them to work with the Facebook Places feature.

Chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said the new deals feature will allow Facebook to partner with businesses, including thousands of SMEs, who will be able to offer promotions directly to customers.

“It starts to solve an age-old problem that local businesses have always had,” Facebook director of local, Emily White, said at the event.

“They’ve been told they need to be online. But it hasn’t always been clear what the benefit is. That’s what this Deals platform allows. It’s turning those fans, those visitors, those eyeballs into real dollars, real people and real business.”

The deals work like this: businesses partner with Facebook to deliver products to customers through the Facebook Places feature. Whenever users check-in to a particular business, they can get a deal or a product.

And these products aren’t just tacky give-aways. Gap is giving away 10,000 free pairs of jeans to people who check-in to Gap stores, and when they run out they’re giving away 40% discount coupons for use on any product.

Cinema chain Alamo Drafthouse is giving away free pint glasses, and the Palms hotel in Las Vegas is offering a stay-for-two-nights-get-one-night-free deal.

Overall, Facebook is launching with 22 major partners, and over 20,000 SMEs are being encouraged to manage their own deals by using the platform developed by the company. Businesses can either use nationwide or local deals, and the interaction with Facebook staff is minimal.

Zuckerberg says Facebook will make absolutely no money from these deals. There are no signing fees or administration costs for businesses. Instead, he says, the focus is on creating a social experience through the new Facebook Places platform.

“Think about Android and iPhone,” he said. “This is a much bigger footprint than that. The only bigger platform is the mobile web itself… Our goal is to make everything social, no matter what platform you’re building for.”

A spokesperson for Facebook Australia confirmed the Deals feature would be rolled out internationally, but could not give a definite time frame.

Users are able to share deals with friends, so you can check-in somewhere, tag your friends and you will all receive the same deal.

But the move could be seen as an attack on the group-buying industry. As TechCrunch points out, why would businesses pay to promote themselves on sites such as Groupon when Facebook is essentially offering the same service for free?

Customers of these group-buying sites also indicate they receive very little financial benefit from posting deals, so by moving to Facebook they wouldn’t be losing any of their bottom line.

Adam Schwab, who runs the daily deals site Zoupon, says the platform will disrupt the market – but he doesn’t believe Facebook Deals will completely kill the market.

“I think it’s just another way for businesses to get deals out there. Facebook is huge but not everybody is on there, and this platform could potentially deliver so much data being thrown at the user. The great thing about the daily deals site is that it’s streamlined – one deal a day.”

“Facebook’s model could very well work. But this is just another way to distribute deals, and there are plenty of other ways to do it.”

Another major new feature is the addition of single login. Now, developers can add a line of code to their apps that allows users sign in if they have already signed into the Facebook app.

“Just log-in to the Facebook application on your mobile phone once. From then on, you can log-in to any other application on your phone that supports single sign-on without typing a username or password again,” the company says.

Facebook used the Groupon app as an example: the app’s developers have already incorporated the single sign-on code into its program. Once a user has signed into Facebook, they can sign into Groupon without having to type in their details again.

“It removes the need to ever have to type a username or password again,” Facebook head of mobile Erick Tseng said, adding that it will be “saving you time from things you have to do, to the stuff you want to do”.

The company also announced updates for its Android app, including the ability to now access Places and Groups.

“Android 1.4 also includes a refresh to the notifications application, one of the top requests from our users. Clicking on a notification now won’t send you off to the browser. Instead, as long as that notification has an appropriate destination within the application itself, you will be taken there,” the company announced.

Zuckerberg also defended Facebook’s lack of an iPad app, saying the device “isn’t mobile”.

“I didn’t mean to be rude towards Apple,” he said. “We all love Apple products here, and we want to work with them. I just want to keep the event focused on what we’re doing today. The iPad is not a mobile platform in the same way a phone is.”