Introduction

Connecting to Facebook through Snowfall Press allows you to open an e-commerce book store right on your Facebook fan-page. You can bypass the cost and hassles of other online commerce methods and connect directly with your readers. Not only will they be able to browse your titles, but also add them to a shopping cart and check out through the PayPal network. The biggest feature, however, is that you won't have to ship them! Leave the printing and shipping to Snowfall Press! Your order confirmation will automatically connect with the Snowfall Press server, and print/ship your order directly to your fan!

Preparation

You will need:

1. A Snowfall Press account with print-ready titles.
2. You need to fill out your Organization information under ACCOUNT SETTINGS so that we can show your customers where to call or email with any questions.
3. You will be selling as a retail store. You will need to check if you need local/state tax licenses for your business, and if so, you should be prepared to file appropriate taxes for your area.
4. Before installing your web-store, you will need a Facebook fan-page for your organization. If you don't already have a fan-page or business page, this is very easy to make. Unfortunately we can't document the steps here as Facebook is constantly changing. At the time this documentation was written, you could create a Fan-page using the "Create a Page" link in the footer of your personal Facebook page. A Facebook fan-page is like a personal page for an organization. You can create a page and give it multiple administrators to help you maintain it.
5. You will need a verified PayPal account. If you do not have one, it's very easy to get one and this account is FREE to set up. (Note: PayPal could change this service at any time, from a free service to a pay service.) You should be sure to set up a number of things in PayPal, including your customer service number; state and local tax information; any customized look and feel for your checkout page; and you should probably block payments from non-US PayPal accounts for now. Please see the PayPal Merchant documentation for more information about managing your PayPal account. PayPal documentation and practices are conflicting.  PayPal says that in order to take payments that you have to have a PayPal Business account which comes with a monthly fee.  At the same time, there is wide spread use and evidence that for accounts doing limited volumes, a Personal PayPal account works fine and does not have a monthly fee.  As Snowfall Press, we can not guarantee that PayPal will not require Personal accounts to be upgraded to Business accounts at some time in the future.

Expectations, Disclaimers and Important Information

The Snowfall Facebook App integration is a BETA program. The features, costs, look, and feel may change at any time – in fact many things probably will change in response to user feedback. This is new territory, and not only for us. This program is unique, and we think it offers tremendous opportunity, but there may be unexpected problems. Facebook itself may change their terms or services and disrupt ours. Even during the development of our integration for instance, Facebook changed and made it impossible for an application to be set as a Fan-page "home". By doing this, they broke the Coca Cola fan-page, who is both one of their major advertisers and the example fan-page that they refer to in their documentation. In the event of a service disruption, we will of course attempt to correct the issue immediately.

It's important to remember that you are operating a store and will be responsible for watching your orders for discrepancies, filing taxes as appropriate and providing at least basic customer service. In general, even non-profits (including community groups and churches) must pay sales tax. We intend to develop a feature to help you collect sales tax in the near future, but supporting the thousands of different rates and rules even in just the US is a very difficult problem. We are collecting no sales tax as we open this program, but you are still responsible for paying it. In most cases it appears that you must pay tax for products shipped within your state, and that tax may be different for products shipped to your county or city. So, depending on where your customers tend to be located sales tax may impact you differently. Be sure to price your products taking this into account. Please be sure to consult with a tax expert in your area. PayPal itself has some very, very basic tools for collecting sales tax if you wish to use them. Consult the PayPal documentation for more info.

Please examine your retail prices before connecting titles to Facebook. Remember that the retail price must cover the production of the book as well as any taxes and fees involved or you could actually lose money on a sale.

Financial Information

There is a 15% Gateway charge on all Facebook sales in addition to the standard production charges. For example: if you sell a book for $12.95 that costs $2.75 to produce, you will receive $12.95 from your customer and we will charge $4.70(2.75 +12.95*0.15) leaving you a profit margin of $8.25. We will not apply the Facebook gateway charge to shipping/handling. Make sure to charge your customers for shipping.

At the end of a business week, Snowfall will invoice for that week's sales. We ask that you please pay this invoice within two business days. So if you receive an invoice on Friday, please pay by the end of Tuesday the following week. We're working to streamline and automate this system by letting you sign up for automatic withdrawal rather than having to approve an invoice, but that project isn't yet completed. For more information on the invoicing process, click here:

Facebook App Setup Steps

Thank you for participating in the Snowfall Press Facebook App BETA program. Please follow the steps below. If you have questions at any time, please contact david.sheets@snowfallpress.com.

Step One

If you have not already done so, the Facebook App requires a valid PayPal account. The checkout is handled through the PayPal system and the full retail amount for each book purchased will be deposited in your account. If you have not set up a PayPal account, you can get that information in their documentation.

Note: You will be setting up a commerce site through your Facebook connection, located on your Facebook business or fan page. Snowfall Press is not responsible for any tax liabilities that might be associated with this commerce site. Check with your tax professional for more information.

PayPal documentation and practices are conflicting.  PayPal says that in order to take payments that you have to have a PayPal Business account which comes with a monthly fee.  At the same time, there is wide spread use and evidence that for accounts doing limited volumes, a Personal PayPal account works fine and does not have a monthly fee.  As Snowfall Press, we can not guarantee that PayPal will not require Personal accounts to be upgraded to Business accounts at some time in the future.

For information about our invoicing, please click here:

Step Two

Open your Snowfall Press account. Now that you have been approved to use the Snowfall Press Facebook App, you will see check boxes behind every title in your Snowfall account. It should look like this: