Facebook commerce has grown significantly over the years, enabling more small online stores to do business through Facebook’s various platforms, including Instagram and WhatsApp.
The integrated e-commerce features are easy to use, and target consumers directly through social media, which offers additional convenience to the consumer. Our guide was created to help you in navigating all aspects of Facebook commerce.
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The first thing to do, if you haven’t already, is to create your Business Page. You can customise your page, selecting the correct category for your product and services, so that customers understand who you are. Additional features like a call-to-action button can also be added to your page, if you want to encourage viewers to shop or contact you.
Tip: Having a Business Page is incredibly beneficial to track analytics and insights into people interacting with your page. You can learn more about your demographic and customer behaviour, which can be used to improve your marketing.
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Once you have your business page set up, you can create a Page Shop. You must agree to the Merchant Termsof Facebook, and once you have uploaded your first product, your shop will go live on your Business Page.
Tip: It’s possible to customise your Page Shop even further by adding collections. You can tag products from your Business Page in a post, so customers can easily click on the tag to start shopping.
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Marketplace is another great way to sell products and communicate with customers. It’s as simple as going to the Marketplace, creating a new listing and adding the details of the product you wish to sell. Customers can send you messages, and anyone browsing the Marketplace will be able to see your listing, which will automatically appear on your Page Shop too. To create a listing for a specific audience, you can create a targeted listing in a Buy and Sell Group.
Tip: To increase visibility and reach your target audience, categorise your listing specifically. There are plenty of subcategories available, and the more accurate your listing is, the more likely it will be to reach the relevant shopper.
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Ads Manager can be used for targeted marketing. Ads can be customised to your liking, including the exact demographic you want to target, and you can also opt in to follow traffic and conversion of the ad.
Tip: You can specifically target your existing customers that have already purchased from you, or your most potential customers that follow your page.
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If you haven’t already, create a Business Account that is connected to your Facebook Business Account. To sell on Instagram, your business must be located in a supported market, sell physical items and must comply with the commerce policies.
Tip: Once your account has been approved, you can turn on the Shopping feature.
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Connect to a catalogue, either using the Catalogue Manager, or Facebook Partner. Upload high quality images and write enticing product descriptions for your catalogue as per usual, including a link to your website.
Tip: As Instagram is purely a visual medium, it’s important to make sure your catalogue looks amazing by following the design recommendations.
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Tag your products in your posts and stories with important information about the product, including the price. You can feature up to five products per post, and one product sticker per story. When viewers tap on the tag, they will be able to see all details you have added about that product, as well as have the option to go to your website.
Tip: Your products will also appear in the Shop tab, which will be shown automatically in the feed of your followers, but can also be accessed by anyone searching for a particular product.
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It is easy to promote ads using your posts, stories or highlights, and track the insights to see how successful the ad campaign is.
Tip: When creating an ad on Instagram, you can also share the ad on Facebook to save you duplicating the work.
WhatsApp Business App
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Create a Business Profile with all the details about your business as you usually would, such as business description, website, and email address. There is also a possibility to use Business Manager, which allows you to access Business API.
Tip: A shareable link is automatically created, which you can use on other platforms to direct customers to your Business Profile.
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The WhatsApp Business App allows users to create a Catalogue of products or services for customers to browse through. Adding full details and a product description helps users to identify what they are looking for. You can add a maximum of 500 products to a Catalogue.
Tip: It is easy to share the full catalogue directly to customers you are already connected with.
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There are Messaging tools specifically available for businesses to connect with their customers. You can customise these by adding an automated message to greet new customers, or a message to say if you are away. It is also possible to organise your contacts into groups with different labels, so it is easy to categorise and locate them again later.
Tip: You can create message templates in order to save time and send quick replies to customers asking frequently asked questions.
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Customers are able to shop easily and place orders through WhatsApp. You can add a shopping button to your profile or chat conversation so customers can access your Catalogue, browse products and add items to a cart.
Tip: Once they have added all their items to the cart, customers will share the cart with the business as a message, and the business must then confirm and process the order to complete it.
Interlinking and integration
The most effective way to make the most out of your Facebook commerce is to link between all three platforms. This gives customers the option to reach you in whichever way is preferable for them. Using the Commerce Manager provides a useful way to set up and manage your catalogue across both Facebook and Instagram, as well as track all analytics.
Another practical way to direct customers to your Facebook platforms is by using a QR code. You can create the QR through your Business Profile on WhatsApp, and by adding this to your physical store, receipts, or high street advertising. Customers or passers by can then simply scan the QR code and be taken directly to your WhatsApp Business Profile.
E-commerce platforms such as Jumpseller make things even smoother for businesses, by offering the option of syncing the products on your online store with your Facebook Catalogue.
