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Last April, Gamestop Corp. (GME) opened a store on Facebook to generate sales among the 3.5 million-plus customers who’d declared themselves “fans” of the video game retailer. Six months later, the store was quietly shuttered. Gamestop has company. Over the past year, Gap Inc., J.C. Penney (JCP) Co. and Nordstrom (JWN) Inc. have all opened and closed storefronts on Facebook Inc.’s (FB) social networking site.

“We just didn’t get the return on investment we needed from the Facebook market, so we shut it down pretty quickly,” Sheetz said in a telephone interview. “For us, it’s been a way we communicate with customers on deals, not a place to sell.”

“It was basically just another place to shop for all the stuff already available on the retailer websites,” Gerten said. “I give so-called F-commerce an ‘F.’”

from the user’s perspective, one of the best parts about Actions is that you can use them without incessantly oversharing to your friends.

When you share a post or update your status on Facebook, it will appear in your friends’ news feeds. But when you have an Action coming from the Open Graph (i.e., from a site that exists outside Facebook but that uses Facebook Connect in some way), that activity will only appear in the Ticker and on your own Timeline.

Many Actions partners will offer granular settings to give you control over what you share. For example, design-centric flash-sale site Fab.com’s “Bought” actions are opt-in. Like the Actions turned on but don’t want to share a particular purchase with your friends? Mark it as a gift to hide it. Don’t worry about embarrassing buys; all Fab.com “adult” items are hidden by default.