The impact of the pandemic was especially hard on small retail businesses that could not sell online while their physical stores were closed. Even today one in three specialty independent retailers doesn’t have an e-commerce-enabled website.
Facebook Shops offers a simple solution for small businesses to sell online.
Why Sell On Facebook Shops?
With over 2.6 billion monthly users, Facebook’s power and influence goes without saying and there’s more than 160m businesses using it already to build up their brand and engage with their customers.
However, there’s more to Facebook than just a place for marketing. Increasingly it is being used for buying and selling products and 78% of American consumers have discovered retail products on Facebook. So if your products aren’t on there, they’ll be finding products from your competitors instead.
How To Use Facebook Shops
To start selling on Facebook Shops, you need to link it up with your existing Facebook Page and use Commerce Manager to add your financial details before uploading your products to Catalog Manager. You can add products manually or via a data feed, depending on the size of your catalog and how often you need to update product lines.
Once your products have been added, you can create Collections of linked or themed products to promote seasonal ranges or discounts. These can be used when you are setting up the layouts in your Shop or promoting them via Collection Ads across Facebook and Instagram for mobile devices.
When your Shop is live, you can manage orders through Commerce Manager. It’s crucial to maintain good customer service on Facebook Shops, as negative feedback can lead to Shops being considered ‘low quality’ and devalued in Facebook’s search rankings, affecting visibility.
Tips For Selling On Facebook Shops
Facebook offers the opportunity to reach mass audiences, but comes with intense competition for their attention. Here are some tips for how small businesses can stand out from the crowd:
- Use the product names to draw attention to special offers.
- Use your brand tone of voice in product descriptions to showcase your brand as a whole.
- When taking product images, keep them simple so it’s clear what the product is and plan them for a mobile-first view.
Facebook Shops offers small businesses the chance to sell their products on a platform with a mass audience without the complexities of managing their own e-commerce website. You can find out more with this guide from Headway Capital, which includes step-by-step instructions for getting started.
