Like most people, you probably use social media. You share photos with family members and close friends, you click through quizzes and ads, or you just check the occasional birthday status (I mean, how else are you supposed to know it’s Nancy’s 54th birthday?). If you’re a business owner, Facebook is a great avenue to gain brand awareness, whether that be through ads, boosting posts, or engaging with your consumers.
This versatile social platform serves both users, followers, and businesses of all sizes. Now, the best of both worlds come together with Facebook Shop. Businesses can sell products right through Facebook, which allows them to reach a larger user-base and create product collections full of easy-to-purchase items. On the flip side, consumers can quickly find the products they love with the customer support they need. I’ll outline some of the benefits behind setting up a Facebook Shop for businesses, and conversely, how this benefits consumers.
Why Set Up a Facebook Shop for Your Business?
Besides reaching a growing user base, Facebook Shop is an avenue for businesses to share their brand story, product collections, and connect with their consumers. By creating a Commerce Manager account, businesses have the ability to manage their online Facebook Shop with payment options, product images, and the opportunity to increase online sales revenue. Let’s break down some of the benefits of setting up a Facebook Shop:
Building brand identity: Since Instagram first launched Instagram Shopping in March of 2019, over 130 million user accounts have clicked on a shopping post to learn more about products. Keep in mind that that’s 130 million users every single month, not since launch. Since there are roughly 120.7 million Instagram users in the U.S., this means, on average, more people are shopping through social media ads per month than there are total account users. It’s no wonder Facebook is jumping into the social shopping game with Facebook Shop (don’t worry: Facebook Marketplace isn’t going anywhere).
With Facebook’s user base nearing 200 million in the U.S. this year, the platform has the potential to exceed Instagram Shopping’s numbers and bring a broader user base to your products while increasing brand recognition. Like most online shopping platforms, Facebook Shop allows you to tell your brand story with customizable fonts and colors, ensuring the shopping experience is cohesive with your band strategy.
Creating product collections: So, let’s say you own a business that has products divided by product line or category, such as a line of eye makeup that’s themed around the color purple. Let’s call it the “Blink Lavender” line to make it a little more fun. By using Facebook Shop’s “collection” feature, you can create a collection of products unique to the Blink Lavender line, and show them off with full-screen photos, videos, and even relevant/related products.
An added bonus, your collection can be shared with Instagram, allowing your products to reach an even larger audience than just your Facebook followers and ad reach audience. Any change you make to a shared collection in your shop goes live on both.
Connecting with your consumers: Now that we have covered branding and product collections, let’s get to the main point: connecting with your consumers. After all, the end goal is to convert these shoppers into buyers. Luckily, through Facebook Shop, you have the opportunity to connect with your shoppers in many ways other than your business page. Your shop connects with customers through WhatsApp, Messenger, or Instagram Direct to answer questions, offer support, and more.
So, when a customer likes that dark purple shade from your Blink Lavender collection (yes, we’re going back to this), but is not sure it matches their complexion, they can contact your business to inquire and ultimately make the purchase.
What Does This Mean for Your Consumers?
Your business is thriving on Facebook Shop, and you’re connecting with your consumers on a daily basis. That’s great, but what does it mean to your consumers? How does this benefit the consumer looking for a specific product? Let’s take a look.
Facebook Shop, from a shopper’s perspective, is the perfect way to find a product on a platform we’re already using every day to connect with family, friends, and new acquaintances. From the ease of finding items to interacting with products, and the hassle-free payment options, Facebook Shop was designed to be user friendly. Let’s look at the three benefits Facebook Shop delivers to your consumers:
Convenience is key: We already know that consumers can easily connect to your products through WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, and Instagram. Besides having the ability to receive support and product information from various apps, once you purchase a product through Facebook Shop, you have the ease of receiving tracking updates and your order status, as well.
Interact with products: Whether it’s from a simple Facebook search, an ad that caught your interest, or your timeline, it’s a simple click to view product details, collections, and videos with Facebook Shop. You not only have easy access to individual items but also collections, related products, and soon, the live shopping experience.
Multiple payment options: You finally found that pair of jeans you wanted after looking through a few collections. Now, you’re ready to checkout. As it stands now, Facebook Shop directs you to check out from the business website. Soon, this will become easier for shoppers to purchase items directly through Facebook Shop.
Facebook is currently working with partners like Shopify, BigCommerce, WooCommerce, and more to provide customers with a hassle-free checkout experience.
What’s on The Horizon for Facebook Shop?
With live shopping and third-party payment options in the balance, Facebook Shop is looking forward to other avenues of creating a more user and business-friendly hosting and shopping experience. Loyalty programs are being developed to help people discover and shop for things they love, with the benefit of gaining rewards to put towards future purchases.
Additionally, in the coming months, businesses will be able to tag their products from Facebook Shop before going live and again after they’ve been published. Shoppers will be able to click the video or tagged image and purchase directly from Facebook, without being redirected.
A Social Shopping Solution for Everyone
Facebook Shop is just hitting the social media market and enhancements are in the works, but many businesses are already jumping on the social shopping train. As a result of the COVID-19 outbreak, more and more shoppers are turning to online shopping. Facebook Shop is the solution for not only businesses, but also consumers to find the products they need and fast.
For more information or resources, check out this information on Facebook Shop and how it can benefit your growing business. For other inquiries on CQL digital marketing solutions and ecommerce needs, contact us today.
