Top takeaways:

• The 500m member social networking site, Facebook, is engaging in growing number of partnerships with online retailers, as social commerce becomes socially acceptable
• Ethan Beard, who runs Facebook’s developer developer network, believes social commerce is “big and disruptive” and that it has reached an inflection point/Tipping Point and will surge over the next 12 months, growing the $133 billion US e-commerce market
• In August, U.S. Internet users spent 41.1 billion minutes on Facebook, surpassing Google Inc.’s 39.8 billion minutes for the first time
• “Facebook will be a top-three channel for all retailers within two or three years” says Scott Wingo, Chief Executive of ChannelAdvisor Corp
• E-commerce incumbents such as eBay and Amazon will profit from Facebook-powered social commerce too through the deployment of Facebook’s social plugins (Amazon), and PayPal (eBay) which is widely used on Facebook stores
• Since the first f-commerce store appeared a year ago (1-800-Flowers.com powered by Alvenda), some 30,000 merchants have set up shop on Facebook using Pavyment, just one of many f-commerce solution providers
• A recent survey of 135 top retailers and consumer goods manufacturers by research firm Altimeter Group found 86% of respondents are preparing to launch some sort of social commerce strategy by 2011.
• A first step in social commerce is to deploy Facebook social plugins on e-stores; children’s e-tailer Tea Collection used the Like button social plugin to allow users to vote on favorite items (traffic grew 300%, revenue rose 1000%)

Source for summary: http://socialcommercetoday.com/wall-street-journal-on-social-commerces-tipping-point/
Original source:  http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20100927-710608.html?mod=dist_smartbrief