Payvment launches Facebook Shopping Mall

The platform will allow users to shop around different FB storefronts with one universal cart

Popular Facebook e-commerce platform Payvment announced Thursday the launch of its latest endeavor: the first-ever Facebook Shopping Mall. The new project is marvelously simple: like any other mall, the Payvment Shopping Mall will unify all of the businesses with Payvment storefronts and categorize shopping experiences by seller, items, bestsellers, recommended items, and more. But unlike traditional malls, Payvment's Shopping Mall will allow users to "like" items that they want, see their friends' "liked" items, and get recommendations based on their Facebook interests. 

The Shopping Mall will aggregate over one million searchable items offered by the more than 50,000 sellers that use Payvment's unique storefront platform. The company has seen a huge response from brands who are eager to adopt Payvment's turnkey solution for creating a storefront on Facebook that will allow Facebook users to browse and purchase products without ever having to leave the network. Some 250 new sellers are signing onto the Payvment platform each day.

The new Mall features will include a directory, where shoppers can browse through a clean and simple grid of shopping categories, including brands, local merchants, item categories, and more. It will also feature a dashboard where users can get recommendations based on their liked items, see the items their friends have liked (think Netflix or Amazon's recommendations: "People who liked this also liked this," but for your friends), and leave/share reviews on merchants and products. 

The most innovative feature of the platform is probably Payvment's universal shopping cart and checkout feature, which allows the user to add items from different stores to the same cart and go through one checkout process. So in essence, you can add a $300 crystal necklace from Molly Sims' storefront to the same cart to which you add a hand-knitted baby blanket from a private seller in Spokane, Washington, and you can buy both in one checkout process. 

“The Shopping Mall on Facebook is where online shopping gets truly social,” said Christian Taylor, founder and CEO of Payvment, in a perpared statement. “We are confident that the Shopping Mall on Facebook will be the place people go to discover new brands, great deals, and the products they and their friends want.”

2010 was a big year for e-commerce, with an estimated $43.4 billion spent online, but the social graph will provide the next wave of e-commerce spending as users look to personalize their shopping experience by buying from sellers that have established social histories. Reviews and recommendations from friends are also showing promising futures, as well as item recommendations based on users' interests. 

In November, Payvment raised $6 million in a Series B round.

Image source: Facebook.com