Since the creation of Amazon, online shopping has become the most convenient way for people to order everything from gifts to groceries, clothing, furniture and more. However, Amazon isn’t the only way to shop online anymore. Facebook has introduced a new “Shop” section that can be added to business pages, allowing customers to purchase products right from your page. The question is, can this new type of shop increase your sales? The answer is yes. Keep reading to find out how.
Facebook Shop Features
Facebook Shop is still new, and not all pages may have access to it yet. However, if you have a page in the US, and you are able to add the shop, the following features will be available.
- Upload products, descriptions, prices and images.
- Separate products into collections and organize your inventory.
- Customers can browse products and purchase on any device without leaving your page.
- Keep track of orders that are placed, shipped, cancelled, and refunded, directly from your pages.
- View product insights such as clicks, purchases, and revenue from each product.
What You Can Sell
For now, Facebook only allows you to sell physical products, and does not allow you to sell services or digital goods through the shop section. The ability to sell services or digital goods may become available in the future.
Manage Orders
When creating your Facebook Shop, you can choose to let customers purchase directly from your page, or send them to your website to complete their purchases there. If you want people to be able to purchase directly from your Facebook page, you can use Stripe or PayPal to receive payments. If you do not have an account for either of those platforms, you will need to create one. Once you have the payment method set up, and an order is marked shipped, Stripe or PayPal will deposit the payments to the bank account you added. Both companies charge you 2.9% of the purchase price + 30 cents for each successful charge.
Drive Website Traffic
If you do not want customers to be able to purchase directly through your Facebook page, you can include a link on each product you add that will send the customers to your website, where they can complete your purchase. This can benefit you in many ways. First, you won’t receive an extra charge from either Stripe or PayPal for the successful orders you obtain. Second, you will drive more traffic to your website, which can help improve brand awareness and SEO (search engine optimization). Third, if you have cross-selling available on your website, you may succeed in getting customers to purchase more items per order, by showing them related products.
Promote Your Facebook Shop
Once you’ve created your Facebook Shop, you may also want to promote your products so more potential customers will see your page. To do this, you can either boost posts through your Facebook ad account, share your products on your page’s timeline, or share your products on Instagram. You can also share entire collections to your page, either organically, or by boosting.
Getting Started
Adding a Facebook Shop section to your page is free and easy to set up. If you are in the US, here are the instructions provided directly from Facebook’s business help center:
- On your Page, click the Shop tab. If you don’t see the Shop tab, click Settings at the top-right corner of your Page, then click Edit Page from the menu on the left. Next, click the Add a Tab button and click Add Tab next to the Shop option. You should see the Shop tab on your Page now.
- If you agree to our Merchant Terms and Policies, check the I agree to the Merchant Terms and Policies box, then click Continue. You may be prompted to reenter your Facebook password for security purposes.
- Choose Check Out on Facebook and click Continue.
- Enter your business’s address and email address.
- If you want to use separate emails to communicate with your customers and receive updates from us and the payment processors Stripe or PayPal, uncheck the Use this email address for customer service inquiries box and enter a customer service email address.
- Choose to set up your shop with either PayPal or Stripe. If you choose to set up your shop with PayPal, click Connect with PayPal to log in or sign up. If you have already have a PayPal account, you’ll need to sign up for a Business account. When finished on the PayPal website, click Submit.
- If you already have a Stripe account, click the connect to an existing Stripe account link and follow the steps. If you don’t have a Stripe account, click Submit and follow the steps in the email you receive from Stripe.
For more information on social media marketing through Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Google Plus, Pinterest and more, reach out to our experts at NetSource Technologies by calling 1-800-709-3240 or clicking here. Our social media and online marketing team will be happy to get you set up new social media accounts, or improve the ones you already have.