Walmart have just announced that they are going to have a Facebook page for every one of their stores in the US. The concept is to build customers relationship with their local store. It’ll start with simple things like store maps and product layout and then add offers and new products. I expect them to rapidly move to “special offers” for customers who “like” them on Facebook and other cross promotions within the Facebook platform.
As a marketing person I can see the appeal of a Facebook marketing engine but from a retail operations perspective this is going to create work at local store level and some operational challenges. Of course the final arbiter will be the customer but I’d be interested to hear your comments..