How to Use Facebook Shop for Small Businesses

What are Facebook shops?

On 19th May 2020, Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook CEO) announced the launch of Facebook shops. In an attempt to support businesses through the impact of COVID-19 they launched an e-commerce solution that enables businesses to upload their products and manage their online store for free. Despite the name, Facebook shops are a feature available for both Facebook and Instagram it enables businesses to link up with their clients via WhatsApp Messenger or Instagram direct.

How do they work?

Facebook Shops can be accessed through a business’ Facebook page or their profile on Instagram. Businesses can also be found through ads or stories. Once found a user can browse through the products and save the ones they like and finally place an order
How can you set up a Facebook Shop?

Requirements

– Sell physical items
– Agree with their Merchant Terms.

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Creating a Facebook Page Shop.

With a Facebook business page, you can easily add a shop. To add a shop, on your Facebook page click on Page Settings then select Template and tabs and click on Add a tab. The Add a tab pop-up will display options for tabs such as live videos, Notes, Services, and Shop. Click on Add tab besides shop. Another popup will appear and click on the checkbox written beside it “I agree to the Seller Terms and Policies”. Finally, select the Checkout method with two options:

– Message to buy: Allows people to send you a message and arrange purchases.
– Checkout on another website: Redirects clients to complete the purchase on another website.

Displaying products on your Facebook Page

To add products click on Add product. A popup will display several options such as:

1. Add Photos and Videos: You will be presented with options for adding photos and videos. A photo editor is available to help you brush up on your photos and make them more appealing.
2. Name A text box for the name of the item.
3. Price: Set the price in the currency you had specified. There is also a product is on sale switch to let your customer know whether there is a discount.
4. Description: A brief description of the product.
5. Share this product on your page: An option to display the product on your page after uploading.
6. Inventory: A checkbox to display the availability of the current product.

After you’ve added all the product details, click save. It might take a few minutes for the product to be processed but after that, it will be visible to the public.

What’s next?

Test your shop. Select the Shop now button and click on the test shop. This option will enable you to view the shop as it will be displayed to your customers.

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Catalogs

A catalog contains all the information about the products you display in your shop, including page shops. A catalog is automatically created upon adding a product to your page shop. Only one catalog can be connected to a page shop at a time but you can switch the catalog. A catalog can be used to add items directly to a page. Catalog and inventory can be managed through the catalog manager.

Insights

Facebook enables you to get details about views and messages for each product. To get this information:

1. Click on publishing tools located at the top of the page.
2. Click the shop tab then click on Products.

Third-party shop

Many businesses have their inventory hosted by some e-commerce platforms. Facebook shops offer a means to add your inventory on those platforms directly to your Facebook shop. Some of the supported platforms include Salsify, Quipt, Feedonomics, Zentail, CedCommerce, BigCommerce among others.

Collections

Collections enable you to group products by category so that customers can easily filter out specific items such as bags or shirts.
To add a Collection.

1. Click on the Shop tab on the Facebook page.
2. Click on Add Collections.
3. Select Publishing tools and click on the + Add Collection button.
4. Specify the name of your collection. You can also specify whether or not it should be visible to your clients.
5. Finally, you can click on save and + Add Products to your collection.

There is no limit to the number of products you can add to a collection.

Tagging Products from your page.

Products can be easily shared on your timeline, by tagging them when you add a new post
To achieve this

1. Upload media for your Facebook post.
2. Click on the Tag Products icon.
3. Then finally click on publish.

How to delete a Facebook Page Shop collection?

To delete a collection:

1. On the Facebook page click on Publishing Tools.
2. On the Shop, section click on Collections.
3. Select the checkbox for the collection you want to delete, click on Actions, and then on Delete collections.
4. Delete the collection and it will be removed from your shop.
Note that once you have deleted the collection, the products in your collection will still be available on the Facebook Page shop.

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How to delete items from a Facebook Page Shop Catalog?

There are three ways to delete items from a Catalog:

Deleting all items.
To delete all items simply delete all data from the feed settings.
Manually Deleting items.

1. Open the Catalog Manager.
2. Select the catalog type.
3. Check the boxes for the items you want to delete and then select Delete.

Deleting with a replacement data feed

You have the option to delete your data feed file or update it with a few changes.

1. Open up the data feed file and delete the items you don’t want.
2. Select either Replace your Data Feed or + Replace Schedule. Replace schedule will enable items to be automatically replaced when you upload new items.

Deleting items with an Update data feed

With an updated data feed, none of the items you previously updated will be deleted, they’ll only be updated. To delete items, mark them for deletion on your data feed.

1. Open the original data feed and add a delete column.
2. Enter true for the items you want to delete in the column.
3. Upload your data feed again and select Update your data feed.

Getting Started setting up your Facebook shop

If you have a large inventory and are looking to create a Facebook shop, you could consider hiring a digital marketing agency. You could probably find one in your locality search for Digital marketing in Houston and you will likely find a digital marketing agency in Houston Texas or your specific state of residence. A digital marketing agency will help you get up and running much more quickly so you can begin selling your products via Facebook.

Merits

– No limit to the number of products you can add.
– Ability to group your products by category.
– Easily communicate with customers.
– You can easily access views clicks and the number of purchases for your products.

Limitation

– Currently, only US businesses can sell via the shop section.