Facebook Shops and Instagram Shops were launched to make it easier for brands to sell their products online. They help small businesses in their transition to sell online and reach a wider audience, plus they’re a win for well-known players that want to allow shoppers to checkout without leaving the app.
Why set up a Shop on Facebook and Instagram?
Facebook and Instagram Shops help brands to reduce friction for shoppers, by allowing them to check out without leaving the app and to transfer their shopping cart products between Facebook and Instagram so they can complete their purchase on either channel.
The stats speak for themselves. Half of those who consume Facebook and Instagram Stories have made a purchase off-platform after seeing a product of service in Stories. And now, Shopping tags are available for Stories, so you can link through to the product in your Facebook or Instagram Shop.
Shops also help to increase organic discovery when people are looking to browse and buy. They may never have considered or heard of your brand, but they can find you via Shops through personalized recommendations.
A whole 70% of shopping enthusiasts use Instagram to discover products, and 78% of American consumers have discovered products to buy via Facebook. It’s estimated that 8% of all product searches globally take place on Facebook. It’s clear there is a huge opportunity for brands to sell their products directly through the platform.
How to set up a Facebook and Instagram Shop
You can set up a Shop whether you have a website or not. If you use Shopify, you can sync your products to Facebook. Likewise, you can sync products from your product catalog using feed management software, just like you would for Facebook dynamic ads.
Best practices for the Shops format
There’s no “one size fits all” approach to Shops, so you’ll want to stay true to your brand and figure out your own route to success. That said, there are a few best practices to bear in mind:
Image quality is key, whether you opt for lifestyle images or the clean look with a white background.
Keywords count, because shoppers can use the search bar within your store to find the products they’re looking for.
Product descriptions should be descriptive and compelling, while giving people the information they need to make their decision
The role of feed management in Shops success
Without high-quality product content that’s optimized for Facebook and Instagram audiences, you may be at risk of losing sales and missing conversion opportunities.
A solid feed management platform will help you tailor and optimize your product content for multiple platforms, including Shops. This way, any time you make changes to your inventory, stock availability, and pricing, your Shops listings will automatically update.
It’ll help you quickly prepare your product feed so you’re ready to sell quicker, and perfectly structure your feeds according to Facebook’s requirements and best practice recommendations. And, you’ll be able to deliver seamless shopping experiences, by better categorizing your products and creating collections.
As the leading feed management solution, Productsup is your gateway to the Facebook API, enabling you to optimize and distribute your data to Facebook and Instagram Shops, as well as to Facebook dynamic ads.