1-800-Flowers Gets Analytics Tool for Measuring Facebook-Based Retail Sales

This is not a huge news item, but notable as retail sales on Facebook is still a relatively unexplored area. Basically, an analytics tool from Omniture is being integrated into 1-800-Flowers’ flower delivery storefront, which is available in the online florist’s Facebook Page. This means the company can gather more data about what’s working — or not working — in terms of selling real-life flowers on Facebook.

Specifically, here’s what’s how it works. Omniture’s SiteCatalyst tool measures demographic segments, number of friends, types of social activity, friend invites, what portion of an app users spend time on, and how all of this engagement leads to actual sales. It launched a Facebook app measurement version in late May. The tool has now been integrated by Alvenda, a company that builds white-label storefront widgets for companies including 1-800-Flowers; the florist’s storefront, launched in early July, lets consumers on sites like Facebook make purchases without having to leave the page.

For Facebook users — many of whom do not want to leave Facebook — the page-based store could be a more convenient way to order flowers. And so it could be a new way for 1-800-Flowers to make money. With SiteCatalyst, now it can better track how well it does that, and identify particular problem points. The question, of course, is how well all of this actually works. The companies aren’t talking about that part, yet.