Whether from a business owners’ perspective or from your own consumer habits recently, we all know that shopping behaviours have been constantly shifting throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.
As we try to establish the ‘new norm’ for our businesses many organisations are turning to digital commerce solutions as a channel to covert more sales, whether that be optimising an existing website or starting from scratch with a webstore.
With lockdown restrictions constantly changing around the world it’s imperative now more than ever to stay agile and serve your customers efficiently.
Although many retailers are struggling amidst the current economic downturn, those who primarily sell their wares online are holding up the best, particularly if they already had an establish digital commerce site. However, the new accessibility to Facebooks ‘Shop’ feature is giving online retailers – old and new – another avenue to target and convert qualified traffic. Hooray!
So, if you’re the owner of a small business, now has never been a better (or easier) time to strengthen your digital presence, boost sales, utilise your social media platforms and create new business for your company.
In a recent update, Facebook announced its intention to help small businesses stay afloat throughout the financially turbulent waters of the ‘new normal’.
As part of this commitment, the organisation has launched a service known as Facebook Shops, a free and easy-to-use platform specially designed with small businesses in mind. Business owners simply need to sign up and use the platform’s intuitive design tools to curate online shops on Facebook and Instagram that provide immersive shopping experiences to mobile devices.
With a customisable cover image and colour scheme, as well as a featured product tool, Facebook Shops is an amazingly affordable tool that could help to boost your business, regardless of its size or sector.
Social commerce is, of course, not a new phenomenon. Ecommerce organisations such as BigCommerce, Shopify, WooCommerce, CedCommerce, and Channel Advisor have all been providing powerful online retail platforms and to small businesses for several years now.
To help make Facebook Shops as seamless and effective as possible, the team at Facebook have partnered with many of these organisations to ensure that the online ecommerce ecosystem is prepared to help small businesses thrive online.
According to a Shopify spokesperson, it will be even easier for merchants to link up their Facebook, Instagram and Shopify profiles, meaning they can manage their products, orders, and fulfilment processes, using Shopify as a central platform through their established social commerce integrations.
Before curating your storefront on Facebook Shops, you will need to sign up to their Commerce Manager. You will also need to double-check that the service is available in your region, as it is gradually being rolled out across the world.
To set up an account on Commerce Manager, you will need to provide Facebook with the following business information:
At the moment, the shop function on Instagram is still being tested and is only available to a small number of users. As the service starts to improve and gain traction, however, we will soon start to see the full version rolled out across much of the world.
This year at Now Comms we’ve been supporting our clients as they adapt their traditional business models to stay agile and competitive in the current market.
We’ve been optimising digital commerce sites, adjusting tech stacks, staying competitive in social and search advertising, reforming customer journeys and creating webstores from the ground up.
If you have an digital commerce query big or small then send us an enquiry today or check out our Digital Commerce Copilot Program.
