Facebook announce Facebook Shops
FacebookFacebook invests in new shopping platform, Facebook Shops, to help ease small businesses and shops who continue to struggle during the Covid-19 crisis. The new platform aims toThe new platform aims to “…help small businesses adapt and make it easier for people to discover and shop for things they love.”
So, what is Facebook Shops?
Facebook Shops goes beyond the previous catalogue tab, offering features such as customising the look and feel of the shop to suit their brand with colours and cover image.
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, hopefully, we see this feature in the UK soon.
A feature we really like on Facebook Shops is the ability for consumers to contact the shop directly through WhatsApp, Messenger or Instagram Direct to ask questions, get support, track deliveries and more. And in the future, you will be able to view a business’ shop and make purchases right within a chat in WhatsApp, Messenger or Instagram Direct.
Facebook Shop WhatsApp Message 
Facebook Shop Messenger 
Instagram Shop Direct Message
Facebook has started to roll out Facebook Shops on May 19, 2020, and hopefully be widely available to a wider community in the coming months.
Instagram Shop Updates
Alongside, the announcement of Facebook Shop, work has started on improving features across apps like Instagram Shop, live shopping and more that will be integrated with Facebook Shops to help customers discover products they are interested in and make purchasing easier.
Europe will need to sit tight though, as the US will see the new features in Summer, with no date announced for this side of the pond yet. So, what can you expect from Instagram Shop?
- Discover and buy products through Instagram Explore
- Get inspired by collections from @shop, browse your favourite brands and creators, filter by categories and purchase the looks you love in one place
- New shop tab in the navigation
Live Facebook Shopping Features
Since the launch of Live, Going Live has become the go-to for brands to showcase their products. With the recent announcements sellers, brands and creators will be able to tag products from their Facebook Shop or catalogue before going live and those products will be shown at the bottom of the video so people can easily tap to learn more and purchase. We LOVE these features as many of our clients see some of their best engagement on live. Facebook hopes to roll out this feature in the coming months.
Connecting Loyalty Programs to Your Facebook Account
“…connect your loyalty programs, like the points program at your local cafe, to your Facebook account” Oh, we like the sound of this! Still in it’s testing phase but Facebook is developing a system to help convert your physical loyalty program to Facebook Shops. Keep your ears peeled on this for further details.
Facebook and E-Commerce Shopping partners
And the final announcement was the Facebook team working closely with shopping platforms like Shopify, BigCommerce, WooCommerce, ChannelAdvisor, CedCommerce, Cafe24, Tienda Nube and Feedonomics to give small businesses the support they need.
So what do you think of the recent announcements?
Check out the full live announce from Mark Zuckerberg here:
