via All Facebook

Who needs printed retail sales circulars, when you have Facebook?

According to a new Compete study released Friday, one out of every four Facebook users visit the official Facebook pages of retailers or consumer products at least once a month, and 56 percent of those said they track sales and promotions via those Facebook pages.

In addition, more than 20 percent of respondents said their purchasing decisions have been influenced by retailers’ and consumer products’ Facebook pages.

To highlight its findings, Compete pointed out that the iTunes Facebook page drew more traffic in February than the actual iTunes domain.

Compete surveyed 3,269 online purchasers from April 14 through May 5.

Compete’s Senior Associate of Retail and Consumer Products Debra Arbesman said:

Our data show that Facebook pages can be a highly strategic and relatively low-cost marketing tool for retailers to engage with shoppers. Savvy retailers are now making Facebook pages part of an integrated online shopping experience, and we expect this model will take the industry by storm in the coming months.

Managing Director of Retail and Consumer Products Matt Pace added:

Nearly one-half of consumers in the study reported that they are a fan of five or more retailers/brands on Facebook, so the opportunity for retailers may be largely untapped. As more data are available to retailers about the benefits of engaging shoppers on Facebook, we’ll likely see more emerging strategies to enable brands to more aggressively tap into this opportunity.