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Due to the fact that in-person shopping has become less and less common during the pandemic, many companies are attempting to keep their doors open in the only way that’s still available to them, with online stores.
Because creating an online storefront can be difficult, especially for companies who have never before sold products online, Facebook Shops was designed to make the process simpler.
When store owners set up Facebook stores and business pages, they can now utilize the features of Facebook Shops to speed the process along and introduce shopping simplification to their customer base.
Introduction to Facebook Shops
Facebook Shops is a tool that allows businesses to create an online store that can be accessed via Facebook and Instagram. It’s free and relatively simple to set up. By using Facebook Shops, companies can catalog products that they want to be featured in their lists and develop unique storefronts that fit their store’s brand.
In light of recent events, Facebook aims to make it easier for small businesses to move their store experience online and keep their companies working even though many establishments have had to physically close their doors.
Facebook Shops can be listed on a company’s Facebook business page or Instagram account, as well as included in ads to further spread awareness of their existence. These pages allow full catalog listings as well as complete purchases on one platform. This means that there is no need to navigate away from Facebook or Instagram to purchase goods or services through an online store.
Facebook Shops and Loyalty Programs
In addition to making browsing and purchasing products a breeze, Facebook Shops is also experimenting with the concept of rewards programs, trying to make it simpler for customers to take part in a rewards system. This way, they can earn points for shopping with the companies they love and in return, companies will be able to grant benefits to loyal customers.
Partnerships
Facebook Shops is also collaborating with e-commerce partners like Shopify, ChannelAdvisor, Cafe24, WooCommerce, Tienda Nube, Feedonomics, BigCommerce, and CedCommerce to help support small businesses in a variety of ways. With these partnerships, Facebook Shops is attempting to relieve some of the stress that small businesses are facing so that building an online platform doesn’t have to be any more of a hassle.
Because these companies have tools that enable business owners to run their companies online, they can help make the transition to online shopping proceed smoothly. Through Facebook Shops, these e-commerce companies aim to help small businesses develop and grow their companies’ online capabilities and allow them to sell products on Facebook with more ease than ever before.
Facebook and Instagram Shops
Aside from the development of Facebook Shops, another tool is aiming to improve the way that customers discover and purchase products through Instagram Explore. A new tool, Instagram Shop will be announced this summer in the United States.
With Instagram Shops, customers can now browse through different brands and their products, as well as complete purchases directly from Instagram. Instead of having to navigate to a company’s website to buy products, purchases can be completed from the app in a couple of simple taps.
To add to this, later in the year, Instagram will also release a tab that allows customers to navigate to the Instagram Shop tool in a single tap.
Live Shopping
While the use of Live video is not a new concept for Facebook users, Live Shopping aims to take the Live video tool to the next level when it comes to initiating and completing online purchases.
Shopping for products in real-time will be a much simpler task to complete with Live Shopping, being that brands will be able to tag certain products from their shops and catalogs before creating a Live video to showcase them.
This way, customers can simply click on the tags to navigate to the products they see displayed in the Live video. By making it easier to find and learn more about certain products, along with visual demonstrations, customers are more able than ever to locate products that they’re interested in.
This new tool is being tested with businesses on Instagram and Facebook and is expected to become more widely available in the coming months.
Because it’s easy to understand the hardships associated with keeping a business successful during uncertain times, Facebook Shops was designed to help provide store owners with security and make it easy for both staff and customers to transition to safe online shopping.
If you’re a small business owner and you’d like assistance with setting up Facebook Shops for your store, we at Automated Dreams can’t wait to hear from you. We will help you throughout each step of the journey, from set-up to integration with other platforms.
