As Australian major retailers drag their feet in delivering digital commerce options, Brisbane start up aradium is delivering a platform for small businesses to sell through Facebook.

aradium themselves don’t have a website, serving as an example to small businesses that they can conduct business through Facebook without the investment required to establish a website and online store.

aradium

aradium is an easy to use app which integrates with Facebook and Paypal to provide a selling platform. “aradium stores can be installed effortlessly by anyone. If you can create a Facebook page, you can install your own aradium store on Facebook,” says aradium’s communication manager, Paul Sobczak.

aradium was founded by Ryan Mills who has a background in enterprise software development and government consulting at a senior level nationally, as well as contracting internationally in Singapore and London.

Users are able to sign up to aradium stores for a free 30 day trial.

Small business

After discussions with friends who had their own small businesses, Mills realised there was a need for an affordable, easy to use app for small businesses to trade online. “It had to be cheap and easy to install and manage. That’s why the monthly fee for subscription is priced affordably at $19.95,” says Sobczak.

“For most small businesses, setting up dedicated infrastructure, servers, web site software, backups, maintenance and upgrades, monitoring and management is just too expensive and out of reach. We provide all of these ‘enterprise disciplines’ as a subscription based software as a service instead. This is compelling, especially to small businesses and their bottom line.”

Facebook

“We think people are attracted to shopping in the Facebook environment because their preferred brands and businesses are already there and already being followed,” says Sobczak.

Whist figures on Facebook commerce in Australia are not yet readily available, overall Facebook figures indicate that Facebook is a positive environment for digital commerce. CMB Consumer Pulse data findings indicate that:

• Facebook is the most popular social network for brand interaction – 34% compared to 4% for Twitter and 1% for LinkedIn
• 77% of Facebook users read posts, news feeds and offers posted by brands
• 56% of followers say they’re more likely to recommend a brand to a friend after “Liking” it
• 51% of followers say they’re more likely to buy a product since becoming a follower

People ‘like’ me

Through the aradium app, consumers can share, like and comment on products, driving traffic to the store.

aradium looks forward to partnering with Australian social media agencies and consultants to form part of social media plans.

Security

Security is a concern for businesses and consumers. However Sobczak says that as the platform becomes more familiar, this will lessen. “The transaction is between the business and the customer, not the platform itself. The components, such as aradium, PayPal, Facebook and related shipping services just underpin the interaction between the customer and the business. So it is no different than shopping on an existing business website. It’s now just social and more easily accessible to small businesses and customers alike.”

Future

Having launched in November 2011, aradium is engaging with customers, taking feedback and incorporating improvements into the platform. New features are updated regularly and automatically incorporated into existing customer’s stores.

www.facebook.com/aradium