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Facebook to let UK users buy gig tickets directly

Mark Zuckerberg is hoping to rival the likes of Amazon and eBay with a move into e-commerce - FR34727 AP
Mark Zuckerberg is hoping to rival the likes of Amazon and eBay with a move into e-commerce - FR34727 AP

Facebook plans to sell tickets for music festivals and other events directly as it pushes further into e-commerce.

The world’s biggest social media company is launching a tie-up with Eventbrite, the events service, to let users in the UK purchase tickets within the Facebook website and app itself.

The new “Events by Facebook” facility, due to go online in the coming weeks, is meant to be an easier way for the social network’s 32m British users to purchase tickets, bypassing multiple webpages that often frustrate buyers.

Instead, the system retrieves information such as names, email addresses and credit card details from the buyer’s Facebook profile. Digital versions of the tickets will also be stored within the Facebook app, and the move represents a natural extension of an existing feature that lets users sign up to events and tell friends that they are attending.

Internet companies are increasingly turning to Facebook to attract customers and visitors. Last year the average member spent 50 minutes a day across Facebook, its Messenger service and the Instagram photo app it owns.

Facebook hopes to exploit this dominance to rival Amazon and eBay. Last year it launched Marketplace, a service that lets users sell second-hand items.

Facebook unveiled the ticket-selling feature in the US last year with Eventbrite and Ticketmaster. Its UK launch  marks the first market outside the US.

Marino Fresch, Eventbrite’s marketing director, said the service had been especially popular for music and nightlife events, and that Facebook would not be taking a cut of any ticket sales.

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