Nowadays, social media platforms like Facebook or Instagram turning smarter from where you can search and purchase products. You can check the details of each product you want to purchase from an official business’ Facebook Page or Instagram profiles.
The time has come now when these social media platforms start supporting a degree of e-commerce. Let’s take an example of Facebook, it has established its marketplace and in the coming days, it is going to hit a bigger push with its Libra cryptocurrency drive. On the other hand, Instagram aims to allow its users to purchase products from their featured posts and ads. Moreover, these organization’s new tools enabling the business process to produce a well-developed Facebook Shop.
All things considered, the pandemic has presumably made purchasers and buyers considerably bound to treat Facebook and Instagram profiles as the reliable source of information on nearby eateries and stores. if your preferred store has changed their working hours or shifted to online delivery/curbside pickup, they’ve more likely posted about it on their Facebook or Instagram profiles. So why not permit users to make buys without leaving the Facebook and Instagram applications?
Also, the most important factor to keep in mind against COVID-19 pandemic is the economic fallout that already affecting and almost vanishing small scale businesses. Businesses that have adopted the platform of Facebook or Instagram to post or advertise their products have the potential to survive the global fallout.
CEO of Facebook Mark Zuckerberg addressing in one of his Live Facebook sessions that this is a way to prevent the fallout of small businesses affecting and suffering from the pandemic, although he stated that the possibility of “undo all the economic damage” is nearly impossible. Still, he emphasized on the effectiveness of Facebook and Instagram shops and believe it will remain beneficial after the pandemic: “I do think we’re going to continue living more of our lives online and doing more business online.”
In the meantime, Mr.Vishal Shah, Instagram’s Vice President of the product revealed that this is a major worldwide trial of the feature, with about 1 million businesses already joined.
Those businesses will have the option to make a Facebook Shop for free of cost — they simply release their catalog online, pick the items they need to feature and customize the cover image with accent colors. Users would then be able to search, save, and order products of their choice.
Mr.Dan Levy, Facebook’s vice president of ads has said, even though the company will charge some amount of small fees on every purchase, the real monetization will only be coming from driving more advertising. (ads and stories will also feature these shops.)
Having said that, Levy illustrated this as a “build once and render anywhere” solution, added by Shah” The shop itself will be very consistent, whether it’s on Facebook or Instagram.” The main difference is how the buyers and purchasers will find these shops. Either they find these shops by the Facebook marketplace or a picture on Instagram in which a product is tagged.
This summer, the company is planning to launch another feature i.e. Instagram Shop, that will allow users to search products of their choice directly from Instagram explore. This will also provide a chance for merchants to get featured and linked in their Live video products from their Facebook shops, and for purchasers to connect loyalty programs to their accounts. On account of this, Facebook also announced that it is partnering with more third-party platforms i.e. ChannelAdvisor, WooCommerce, CedCommerce, Cafe24, BigCommerce, Shopify, Feedonomics, and Tienda Nube
Sellers will be able to consume these third-party platforms to manage their Facebook Shops, as well as the ads bound to those Shops. For example, Shopify said, “Facebook Shops allows Shopify merchants to get control over customization and merchandising for their storefronts inside Facebook and Instagram while managing their products, inventory, orders, and fulfillment directly from within Shopify.”
