A few months ago we wrote about Facebook’s new e-commerce feature Facebook Shops. This platform helps businesses maintain their sales during the epidemic.
The initial launch did, however, only cover businesses in North America, so aside from a “coming soon” section on the likes of Shopify, not much changed in the UK.
But now the Facebook Shop feature is available to a selection of countries in Europe which includes the UK. While it’s not the smoothest set-up journey yet, it won’t be long until you can have a fully functional Facebook/Instagram Shop that offers more than the current shopping experience on the platforms.
Over the past few months, most professionals and perhaps users may have noticed a number of changes to Facebook. Looks wise, there has been a quite significant makeover on desktop and a number of bugs in the backend are highly likely to be due to a number of other changes that could be related to this rollout.
Facebook Shops New Layouts
One of the main features is the layout of the new shops. A new tab features a directory where you can search for different shops.
The layout within each shop has also changed. In the past, it has been pretty straight forward product listings page. Products are pulled from a feed such as Shopify (in most cases) that looks something like the below. Ie. quite basic.
However, now the shop brings more of an experience and is reminiscent of an ecommerce website with more visual potential which Adidias shows on their Instagram Shop:
Not Quite Ready Yet
Now, everything is not up and ready yet. When we spoke to Facebook they told us that features like website checkouts weren’t available. We would have to use messenger as a way of securing sales unless we had a US bank account.
“If you want to use onsite checkout you will need to have a US Bank Account.”
Furthermore only North American users can check out onsite:
“If you have the US bank account you will be able to set up Commerce Manager but only buyers from North America can experience the onsite checkout.“
That is quite annoying as many find securing simple e-commerce sales via messenger quite long-winded. However, we’re confident that they will introduce onsite checkout soon. A major selling point of Facebook Shops is that it is meant to make it easier to sell and buy on Facebook and Instagram.
Eventually, users will be able to make a purchase without leaving the app at all. Other features such as live shops will be added, but the latter is most likely months away so we will keep you up to date.
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