Facebook & Instagram Launch “Shops” – A Mobile Friendly Shopping Experience For Businesses

Amidst the current coronavirus pandemic, Facebook has made a big move in the e-commerce game. On May 19 Mark Zuckerberg announced the introduction of Facebook Shops – a new feature, which is all about making it easier for small businesses and entrepreneurs to promote and sell their products directly in social media, without having the need of an expensive or complicated online store based on a different platform.

In their Blog, Facebook stated:

“Businesses can choose the products they want to feature from their catalog and then customize the look and feel of their shop with a cover image and accent colors that showcase their brand. This means any seller, no matter their size or budget, can bring their business online and connect with customers wherever and whenever it’s convenient to them.”

Here you can watch the official live announcement that Mark Zuckerberg made:

https://www.facebook.com/zuck/videos/10111929914173161/

It will be free and really easy to create a Facebook shop. By providing a simple and easy to use e-commerce solution, which allows social media users to directly make purchases while browsing Facebook and Instagram, Facebook is bound to join the big e-commerce platform with a blast.

There is no doubt now that e-commerce is the name of the game currently and with such a move from the social media giant, it will be really interesting to see how online shopping will be reshaped in the near future.

From a platform for ads, Facebook is connecting its billions of users to a direct shopping experience, which, if done well, can be really powerful. 

Eliminating major difficulties for businesses as having to build an online store on a platform, dealing with payments and customer service on many levels by providing an all-in-one solution that exists in the medium of your potential shoppers – social media – is really a strong selling point.

Facebook stated though that it is working with partners like Shopify, BigCommerce, WooCommerce, and others so “small businesses can get the help they need to run their businesses digitally”.

Facebook Shops will allow businesses to do their customer support via Messenger, Instagram Direct Messages & WhatsApp. Shops will have an integrated payment option so users won’t need to leave Facebook to finalize their checkout anymore. 

You might think “Wait, don’t we already have Facebook Marketplace and Instagram Product Tagging already?” but this is a totally different game. While Facebook has been continuously working to integrate different e-commerce features in its social media platforms now we are talking about having entire independent and fully functional online stores directly on Facebook and Instagram. 

They are rolling out as well features such as:

1. Instagram Shop
2. Live Shopping Features
3. Loyalty Programs Connected to Your Facebook Account

Here are the full official blog posts introducing Facebook shops:

https://about.fb.com/news/2020/05/introducing-facebook-shops/

https://www.facebook.com/business/news/announcing-facebook-shops

We will monitor the development of this new feature very closely and very soon we will release a full guide for Facebook Shops and how businesses can take full advantage of this new opportunity in e-commerce! Stay tuned and sign up for our newsletter for more news, digital business advice & marketing tips!