Facebook Shops: A new player in the global e-commerce market
- 17 August 2021
Not that long after Google had launched their Shopping service, Facebook saw the opportunity in conquering the global e-commerce market and tried to fight with Amazon for at least a piece of the e-commerce cake. In 2020, Mark Zuckerberg’s platform announced a new feature – Facebook Shops. It is a fully configurable e-commerce interface that allows you to showcase and sell products directly via Facebook and Instagram. If you operate in the e-commerce sector, read on because FB Shops can be your new way to get more customers are increase sales.
Facebook Shops is a relatively new option that allows fan page administrators to build mobile-friendly online stores available on both Facebook and Instagram. This new tool was devised in order to help SMEs deal with the covid-19 pandemic. While brick-and-mortar stores in the vast majority of countries remained closed for the better part of the past year, Facebook Shops facilitated benefiting from the online channel[1].
Currently, over 200 million companies use Facebook[2]. Thanks to this new feature, they can sell their products in a personalized shop that’s fully compliant with the brand’s image, enabling them to showcase their products on social media.
Facebook Shops – support for sellers
For several years now, Facebook has been trying to provide their users with the opportunity to sell products via their platform. There were several initiatives along the way, including Instagram Checkout, shopping ads, and even Facebook Marketplace – a B2C and C2C platform used mainly by private sellers. However, none of these solutions was sufficient when it comes to the needs of a fully-fledged online store.
Source: https://www.facebook.com/business/help/2343035149322466?id=1077620002609475
In 2020, the American hegemon decided to unify their e-commerce tools by introducing Facebook Shops. According to them, this app is especially useful concerning small companies that had to close their brick-and-mortar businesses and switch to online sales[3]. At this point, we should emphasize that FB Shops is a service for physical goods only. You can’t use it to offer digital products or services.
Quick and easy shopping
Today, Facebook Shops can be a true game-changer for online sellers. In his speech, Mark Zuckerberg highlighted that today, customers wanting to buy something online had to go to the selected online store, which prolongs the shopping process. Facebook Shops should eliminate this problem altogether by offering a more straightforward way of shopping[4].
You can watch the whole speech here:
The customer journey in Facebook Shops is quite normal. You can discover new products, save ones that interest you, and place an order with just several clicks. There is the Checkout feature available, but so far, only in the United States. Concerning other countries, customers are redirected to the store’s website to finish the payment process. Sellers can communicate with their customers via Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Messenger.
In the long run, Facebook plans on enabling placing orders directly in the chat window and through the product video. Moreover, this social media platform is working on integrating Facebook Shops with diverse loyalty programs available both on FB and Instagram[5].
Facebook Shops: E-commerce streamlined
Having a store on Facebook is really a quick and easy way to offer your products on social media. Merchants can show their products, organize them in so-called collections, and ensure smooth customer service. The Shops service provides users with a lot of flexibility. You can create a store that’s directly linked to your page on FB or Instagram. You can do that directly via Facebook or your e-commerce platform. Among many partners of this project, we can find Shopify, BigCommerce, WooCommerce, and several others[6].
Some platforms working with Facebook have even been equipped with specific modules enabling importing products from the online store directly to the Shops app. This way, sellers don’t have to input all the products manually[7].
The cost of running a store on Facebook
Currently, running a store on Facebook is free. You just have to pay a commission for every payment made via Facebook Checkout. The commission is 0.40 USD for orders under $8 and 5% above this figure[8]. A brand offering their products on Shopify, WooCommerce, and other e-commerce platforms, can integrate their shop with an external payment platform, thus avoiding the need to pay the commission.
Facebook believes that new ads ordered by merchants to promote their shops will be sufficient in terms of financial contribution to this project. After all, if Facebook Shops operates effectively and generates valuable traffic, every store will be vitally interested in buying ads to attract more customers.
Start your Facebook Shop and use Dealavo’s help!
You have to know that Facebook Shops is a project in the making, meaning many of the features and options are still being developed. It doesn’t change, however, this simple truth that you should give Shops a shot. This service allows you to get to 2.8 billion Facebook users and the entire Instagram network. It’s also a tremendous way to improve UX in your online store (and do so entirely for free!).
If you need support in managing your brand’s online presence, primarily concerning the pricing and monitoring competitors’ activity, take a look at our offer for e-commerce companies:
Within one dashboard, you have access to the lowest offer in the market, competitors’ activity, and a number of offers available online. We monitor competitive stores and key marketplaces. Try Dealavo Smart Prices, and see for yourself that managing an online store can be easy!
[1] https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/what-is-facebook-shops
[2] https://s21.q4cdn.com/399680738/files/doc_financials/2020/q4/FB-Q4-2020-Conference-Call-Transcript.pdf
[3] https://about.fb.com/news/2020/05/introducing-facebook-shops/
[4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UurToZl1lR0
[5] https://www.pocket-lint.com/apps/news/facebook/152255-what-are-facebook-shops-and-how-do-they-work-on-facebook-instagram-messenger-and-whatsapp
[6] https://about.fb.com/news/2020/05/introducing-facebook-shops/
[7] https://www.sellerschoice.digital/blog/how-to-connect-your-product-catalog-on-shopify-to-facebook
[8] https://blog.hootsuite.com/facebook-shops/
[9] https://www.chargedretail.co.uk/2020/05/20/facebook-launches-shops-platform-in-major-challenge-to-amazon/
[10] https://s21.q4cdn.com/399680738/files/doc_financials/2020/q4/FB-Q4-2020-Conference-Call-Transcript.pdf