Facebook launches new shopping feature “Facebook Shops” for small businesses

Mark Zuckerburg the CEO of Facebook announced on Tuesday the launch of a very new feature Facebook Shops that will allow new businesses to demonstrate and sell their products via this social media platform.

The startup’s business owners can now feature their products on the shops, post ads for the users, and communicate with the buyers using the Facebook messaging app. Every online store will get integrated all over Facebook, Whatsapp, and the Messenger app.

Facebook has envisioned accumulating commerce in its business with the hope to grasp the user’s attention and generate a new resource of revenue. According to the CEO, the efforts are ramped up due to the pandemic. The worldwide lockdown made over 160 million small businesses signed up on Facebook struggling.

Buyers can purchase the products either with the website’s business links or via using the checkout feature of Instagram. The checkout feature on Facebook will launch in the months to come.

The CEO of Facebook Mark Zuckerberg said: “We are seeing a lot of small businesses that never had online presences get online for the first time, and we’re seeing small businesses that had online presences now make them their primary way of doing business. For lots of small businesses during this period, this is the difference between staying afloat and going under.”

Facebook is not charging any fee or cutting of sales from the businesses that have set up the storefront. The only fees charged on the checkout where the users are charged about 5 percent. Even though it is a higher fee but it is still lesser than what Amazon and eBay are charging.

A senior writer at technology news Anthony Ha stated that the global lockdown has worked in the favor of Facebook. He said: “After all if your favorite store has changed their hours, or switch to online delivery or kerb-side pickup they have almost certainly posted about it on Facebook or Instagram.

He further added: “So it makes sense for Facebook to make the purchase process as easy as possible for those profiles. From a business perspective, the obvious goals are to drive more advertising.”

This latest feature is marked as a new beginning in this social media giant’s year-long attempts of turning into an online shopping destination. Back in 2014, the company tested a “buy” button on the products displayed in ads. However, the initiative never took off or got successful. This new initiative is fruitful to the startup businesses as they can create their customized storefronts that reflect the feel of their brand rather than the simple catalogs that were offered to them in the past.