With high profile brands such as Gap, Gamestop and, in the US, JCPenney, having opened and then subsequently closed Facebook stores (presumably because they weren't delivering ROI) it would be easy to assume that social media is not suitable for sales – too easy, perhaps.
But those who dig a little deeper may find that opportunities abound if social media is leveraged in the right way.
"We haven't tried to use social as a sales channel at all. It doesn't suit our demographic and we're not a discounter," argues Andrew Curran, chairman at luxury homewares e-tailer Amara. "Having said that, there are examples – take Fab.com – of retailers for which social is a significant proportion of what they do and drives a large percentage of their business."
