Laura Donovan
Move over Like Button and make room for the Buy Button.
Facebook doesn’t just want you to socialize, share and discover new things, it wants to help you shop and buy what you need and want.
Facebook is currently testing shops within Facebook Pages. These are “essentially mini e-commerce sites” (BuzzFeed News) within a Facebook Business Page. While still in the testing phase there are some Business Pages that have the “buy” button. This allows the “entire shopping experience to occur within Facebook – from product discovery to checkout.” (BuzzFeed News)
This features makes it even easier for businesses to sell their products and keeps people in the Facebook platform, they don’t have to leave.
If all goes as planned this new feature will bring storefronts directly to Faceobok Pages and have a major effect on online commerce.
Facebook product marketing manager, Emma Rodgers, told BuzzFeed News, “with the shop section on the page, we’re now providing businesses with the ability to showcase their products directly on the page.”
Facebook relies on digital advertising for most of its revenue and it is expected that it will reach nearly $ 60 billion in 2015, according to eMarketer. Online commerce is estimated to reach about $ 350 bilion in 2015. It is easy to see the appeal for Facebook to add this feature to its platform.
As more businesses sell on Facebook they will be “at the mercy of Facebook’s algorithms and probably have to start buying ads to make sure people see their products.” Facebook could also start taking a part of the sales for added revenue.
At the 2015 F8 Conference, CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced that users will be able to use Messenger to speak directly with businesses, track packages and transfer money. Adding a storefront will allow businesses to put all of these pieces together in one place.
It was also announced that Facebook is reportedly working on Moneypenny, a virtual assistant that may help people research, find and buy products.
Overall, adding storefronts and shopping features to the platform will help Facebook become “the” place for businesses to do business and for consumers to find what they need.
With Rodgers adding, “We’ll continue to add incremental features and capabilities to Pages because they are such an important part of the consumer experience on Facebook.”
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