Discover How Facebook Shops Can Grow Your Online Business
Wednesday, May 27, 2020Eric Zegarski
Everything You Need to Know About Facebook Shops
Mark Zuckerberg and Co. have been cooking up a storm at Facebook. Earlier this month, Facebook announced its new
Shops feature for Facebook and Instagram. For years Facebook has allowed you to connect with things you are passionate about. Facebook has been a destination for people looking for one of a kind items in their neighborhood on Facebook Marketplace. Now with Facebook Shops, merchants can reach their customers globally. Facebook Shops is great for those looking to get stated with eCommerce, or established merchants looking to grow their multi-channel.
TL;DR Facebook Shops
Facebook was on a mission to ensure shoppers have a world-class shopping experience. Facebook is set on helping small businesses adapt to selling online and for people to discover the products they love.
Using Facebook Shops, businesses can set up a single online store for shoppers to access from Facebook and Instagram. Creating a store on Facebook Shops is free and easy. Businesses choose what products they would like to sell from their catalog. Merchants can customize their shop with accent colors and a cover image. This feature is great for merchant who don’t have the technical capabilities to build an eCommerce site from scratch.
Facebook Shops can be found through a business’ Facebook page or Instagram profile. Businesses can also promote their Facebook Shop through storied and paid advertisements. Shoppers also can save products they are interested in to purchase at a later date.
If shoppers require assistance while browsing a Facebook Shop, they can reach out through WhatsApp, Messenger or slide into your Instagram DMs. Down the road, Facebook will be rolling out a feature that allows shoppers to make purchases directly in the chat.
Coming Soon: Instagram Shop
Starting this summer and launching in the US, Facebook will be launching Instagram Shop. Shoppers will be able to discover new products in the Instagram Explore feature. There will be featured products under the
@shop account on Instagram. Users will be able to filter their searches based on their favorite brands and by categories like beauty and sporting goods. Later in the year they will be adding a tab that will allow users to shop directly from the navigation bar.
Marketing Made Easy with Facebook Shops
Going live is a great feature to connect with your followers on Facebook. Merchants of all sizes have been using this feature for years to connect with their audiences. Soon your followers will be able to shop real time while watching a live video. Before going live, merchants will be able to tag products from their Facebook Shop, these products will be shown at the bottom of the video. Facebook is already testing this with merchants on both Facebook and Instagram.
Facebook is also looking to help you find ways to reward you’re your customers. Facebook will be launching a rewards program that will be inked to an users Facebook account. Shoppers will be able to keep track of all their points there.
Facebook Shops is an Extension of Your Existing eComemrce Site.
Facebook is working closely with partners like Shopify, BigCommerce, WooCommerce and ChannelAdvisor. Facebook’s goal is to create a seamless shopping experience between shops on those platforms and Facebook Shops. Facebook already has integrations with these platforms that allow for bi-directional data synchronization. Below you’ll find resources on how to connect these platforms with Facebook:
A Connected Commerce Network is Essential Now More Than Ever!
With these eCommerce platforms acting as home base for your Facebook Shop, having an integrated commerce network is key. Connecting your eCommerce platform with your ERP enables bi-directional data flow. Important data such as orders and inventory are automatically synced between these systems. This means you spend less time on manual data entry and more on growing your business. Discover the full benefits of an integrated commerce system
here.
You’ll be pleased to know that eBridge has pre-built connectors for
Shopify,
BigCommerce,
WooCommerce, and
ChannelAdvisor. This means we can implement an integration quickly with minimal set up costs. In addition, eBridge is hosted on Microsoft Azure, therefore ensuring an almost 99.9% uptime and industry leading security. With an integration solution from eBridge, you can ensure that your commerce network is connected and communicating data bi-directionally.