Facebook Launches Gifts Feature

As retailers prepared themselves for the gift-giving season, it seems like all anyone wanted to talk about was mobile commerce and how it would be driving sales for Black Friday and Cyber Monday (News - Alert). Others jumped onboard with easy gifting services like Sesame from Sincerely Inc., which offers users “expertly designed, themed gift sets” purchased on their device. 

Now, Facebook (News - Alert), which has been struggling to increase its profits ever since the company went public, has decided to get in on the action.

It has launched its Gifts feature, limited for the time being, to users in the United States.

Facebook seems confident the new program will be a success, as it’s projected to be a good match for many who already use the social networking site to track birthdays and wish each other well on accomplishments. 

With the new feature, Facebook hopes to turn those wishes into gifts.

Some of the partners in the project include: Random House, iTunes, babyGap, Dean & Deluca, and Brookstone. One of the most compelling features of using Facebook for giving gifts over other services is that the recipient enters their own shipping address and has the opportunity to review things like size, color and style before a shipment is made. This not only ensures that the person who the gift is sent to is happy with the fit, color and style of their gift, but also that the sender does not run the risk of sending the package to an old address, leaving it in mail-forwarding limbo. 

If nothing else, it certainly seems to be a better idea than Facebook’s last attempt to make more money: promoted posts.