'Facebook Shops' to take on Amazon in e-commerce: Here's how
What's the story
After launching several scattered features aimed at buying and selling products, Facebook is making a full-fledged move in the social e-commerce arena to take on players like Amazon. The company has announced 'Facebook Shops', a service that allows businesses to create an online store on the social network's apps to reach potential customers and sell directly to them. Here's all about it.
Working
Free online store for every business
Available to everyone, from SMEs to well-known brands, Facebook Shops promises to be a free platform to bring a "business online and connect with customers wherever and whenever" required. Facebook says it hopes to use Shops to provide a seamless buying and selling experience, which has become even more important due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the store closures stemming from it.
Working
How buyers would be able to use Facebook Shops?
Once a business creates a personalized online store with its products, the entire catalog will be visible through a 'View Shop' button on the business' Facebook Page, Instagram profile, or both. From there, you can browse the collection, save products you like, and place an order either on Facebook/Instagram itself or through the business' website. Their shop would also appear through Stories and Ads.
Support
Online support from businesses will also be included
Along with this neat shopping experience, Facebook Shops will also let you get in touch with sellers via Messenger or Instagram DMs. This would help you inquire about the products, ask for tracking details, delivery timelines, and other order-related details. Facebook is also working on enabling access to Shops and their products through the two messaging apps as well as WhatsApp.
Roll-out
Roll-out started, will be expanded in coming months
Facebook has started rolling-out Shops, and it will be expanded over the coming months to help over 160 million businesses around the world come online, including several small ones that cannot operate in the current situation. The social network has a user-base of over 2.5 billion and that gives all these sellers a humongous target audience to reach out and sell directly.
Information
New features also being developed to link with Facebook Shops
The Mark Zuckerberg-led company has also confirmed that it will add a Shop tab on Instagram and a live video shopping feature on both Facebook and Instagram to let users explore collections from their favorite brands and creators, and shop via Facebook Shops.