Facebook is becoming a hub for e-commerce, including pop-up stores and now even a Facebook mall, where retailers can offer their products to Facebook’s huge network without customers ever having to leave the site. A study by Adgregate (with the help of Webtrends) looks at how Facebook fan pages are impacting traditional e-commerce sites.  According to All Things Digital, Adgregate found that Facebook was “generating a ton of visits” to brands’ Facebook pages, providing an opportunity to convert that traffic into sales.

The study analyzed the unique visits to the websites of 44 of the Fortune 100 as well as their Facebook fan pages. Using data from this base, Adgregate makes a number of conclusions:

• 68% of Top 100 Companies experienced a negative increase in website traffic, with an average drop in visits of -23% from 2009 to 2010
• 40% of companies showed higher traffic to their Facebook page in comparison to their website
• Once a Facebook store is opened, Facebook wall posts generate 1,673% spikes in store traffic (on average)
• One month after a Facebook store launches, the base level of traffic is 1-10% of the Facebook fan base for that brand
• Facebook stores on average generate a 17% social engagement rate (merchandise “likes” and “shares” per visitor)
• Facebook stores generated 5.9 page views per visit (on average)
• Time spent in a Facebook store averages 2:50 per visit (with growth of 50% over last 3 months)
• Facebook commerce conversion rates range from 2% to 4% and are on par with e-Commerce websites

Check out two examples of Facebook commerce at work:

Delta Airlines recently enabled customers to book tickets directly on its Facebook page, and saw a drop in website visits but a significant increase in Facebook fans:

• Traffic to Delta’s site lost more than a million unique visitors over a three month period
• Delta’s Facebook page gained more than a 1,000 new fans

Thinking in even broader terms, Payvment launched a Shopping Mall on Facebook, where consumers are able to shop among 50,000 retailers with over 1.2 million items, and add their items to a single shopping cart.

• On the first day, Payvment said sales quadrupled (compared to sales when customers were limited to a shopping on their individual fan pages), as reported by All Things Digital
• The Shopping Mall on Facebook has attracted 13,893 monthly active users to date

Is your brand considering a move to Facebook commerce?