Facebook Reveals the Next Stage of its eCommerce Push

Facebook has launched a series of new buying and discovery tools in keeping with its growing eCommerce focus, which include WhatsApp shops or Facebook Marketplace shopping listings, as well as a new, familiar Instagram visual product search option.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg made the remarks live, stating that Facebook and Instagram shops now get about 300 million visitors a month. More than 1.2 million months-long active shops were also mentioned by Zuckerberg, which is noteworthy considering that only one year ago Facebook started up its shop options.

Here’s the next thing to come.

The biggest ad is WhatsApp shops, which allow companies to present their whole shop in the messaging app, allow consumers to find additional similar products and connect to the company for more information.

“Shops bring to WhatsApp to make the search for products or brands that consumers want to deal with easier.” As per Zuckerberg.

While WhatsApp is the world’s most utilised communication app, monetizing that audience was tough since people don’t want commercials in their private chat threads, and ads in WhatApp status, a version of their own stories.

As a result, Facebook has been obliged to look for new revenue streams, the most promising of which is facilitating business activity directly within the app. In growing digital economies like India, where WhatsApp has more than 500 million users, this has become a particularly important factor. Given its presence in the Indian market, Facebook has been attempting to include more business tools into the app in order to expand its usage and position it as the primary facilitator of more types of connections and transactions.

WhatsApp Shops will build on this, and Facebook is also working on in-app discovery and payments, as well as advanced business features – which, assuming WhatsApp’s controversial new privacy policy change is approved, could be a big boost for the app’s usefulness and utility.

Also of note, according to Zuckerberg, businesses will just have to set up their shop once in order for it to run across Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, potentially expanding eCommerce options.

Aside from that, Facebook is bringing Shop listings to Marketplace. As you can see, the new feature will expand your Shops product listings to Facebook Marketplace, giving brands more methods to engage with potential buyers while also giving Facebook more options to drive browsing and buying behaviour.

Furthermore, people who have created Shops will not need to do anything further in order for their products to be included on Marketplace and displayed in related searches. Facebook is currently figuring out the ideal approach, but it’ll be another opportunity to drive more purchases on the app.

Marketplace inventory for Shops with on-site checkout is now accessible in the United States. Facebook will soon introduce new, tailored Shop advertisements, according to Zuckerberg, that would promote things based on people’s particular purchasing tastes and prior actions. Users will be directed to a Shop’s curated assortment, which will be tailored to their registered interests.

Given Instagram’s visual focus, this will likely be most significant, but the increased potential for exposure will benefit a wide range of brands, which will undoubtedly see a surge in interest in Facebook’s Shops alternatives. With eCommerce still on the increase, now is the perfect time to make the next move.