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Facebook: Your next favorite grocery store?

Who needs grocery stores when you've got a Facebook account?It seems that companies with Facebook accounts are finally truly getting into the strange social media-based e-commerce game by offering up goods such as ketchup — yes, ketchup — to eager online shoppers.Gizmodo's Kat Hannaford reports that she was unable to resist the urge to purchase a bottle of Limited Edition Heinz Tomato Ketchu
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Today

Who needs grocery stores when you've got a Facebook account?

It seems that companies with Facebook accounts are finally truly getting into the strange social media-based e-commerce game by offering up goods such as ketchup — yes, ketchup — to eager online shoppers.

Gizmodo's Kat Hannaford reports that she was unable to resist the urge to purchase a bottle of Limited Edition Heinz Tomato Ketchup when Facebook gave her the option to do so. After all, at about $2.50 — shipping included — the condiment would cost her just about as much as it would in a plain old brick and mortar store.

I have a hunch that Heinz might almost prefer that Hannaford purchase her ketchup online though.

Why? Because she, like most of us, wanted to announce her slightly peculiar purchase to her many Facebook friends moments after making it:

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How's that for free advertising?

After seeing Hannaford's Facebook post, I almost wanted to buy the limited edition condiment as well — and I don't even really like ketchup — simply for the novelty of it. I kept my two and a half bucks in my pocket though, because it turns out that the offer is only available to UK-based folks and limited to 3,000 bottles of ketchup.

That disappointment aside, this incident left me wondering whether it's really so strange that we might start making a habit out of purchasing our groceries on a social networking site. After all, we can use Facebook to break up relationships and chat up our college admissions officers, so why not use it to do something as simple as purchasing condiments?

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Rosa Golijan writes about tech here and there. She's a bit obsessed with Twitter, loves to be liked on Facebook, and realistically will probably never buy ketchup on the Internet — or mayonnaise for that matter.