Facebook Shops, a New Online Shopping Experience

On Tuesday, Mark Zuckerberg announced an important product being launched across Facebook and its partner apps.  Facebook Shops gives small businesses the ability to easily set up a store to sell products directly on Facebook and Instagram with the complete checkout process and/ to easily integrate with your existing e-commerce website.

For many of us, this isn’t a huge surprise and shopping on facebook and instagram already existed for pages and the integrations already existing for shopify, woocommerce, bigcommerce, and other platforms.  This is just going to make it easier for small businesses to get it set up without anything else.

It is not going to replace your website or e-commerce as the capability will be limited, but it is still important if if you don’t utilize it in some way, you will be missing an opportunity.

The biggest advantage of the new facebook shops is that you will be directly connected to a customer base and the native shopping experience eliminates the step of having to be directed to the website.  Every time you remove a click or roadblock, you are increasing your conversion rate and chance at a sale. You’ll also be able to connect with customers through WhatsApp, Messenger or Instagram Direct to answer questions, offer support.

• Here is there official knowledge page on shops: https://www.facebook.com/business/shops
• Here are the setup steps:
  https://www.facebook.com/business/help/912190892201033?id=206236483305742

Here is the official gist of it directly from Facebook:

“Facebook Shops make it easy for businesses to set up a single online store for customers to access on both Facebook and Instagram. Creating a Facebook Shop is free and simple. 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 for them.

People can find Facebook Shops on a business’ Facebook Page or Instagram profile, or discover them through stories or ads. From there, you can browse the full collection, save products you’re interested in and place an order — either on the business’ website or without leaving the app if the business has enabled checkout in the US.”

Below is the video Mark Zuckerburg shared on his facebook page to launch the shops.

Of course, Catskill Marketing will be here for you to help get your facebook shop set up if you have trouble, or need advice.  We can help with the product photos, graphics, page setup, and payments.  It seems easy, but we know it can get confusing if you have never done it before. Feel free to reach out via email to matt@catskillmarketing.com and we will set up a time to help.