What's the difference between Facebook Shops vs. the shops they had before?
I was reading an article about Facebook releasing a new tool - Facebook Shops (here's the article if you want to check it out: https://www.plytix.com/blog/tool-facebook-shops)
But I don't understand what the difference is between Facebook Shops and what they had before.
You already could sell on Facebook & Instagram.
Though the WhatsApp feature is new (I think).
Has anyone started a Facebook Shop?
If so, what's the experience like?
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The biggest differences are the customer experience and the level of customization for the merchant. With the existing technology, 'Page Shops', the products really just appear as if they were another type of posted content within the businesses page. With 'Shops', the merchant can customize a full ecommerce experience, where the customer can browse all products and receive a similar experience to the one they would have on the merchants website, without having to actually leave Facebook.
The same goes for Instagram. Currently most shopping is done through tagged posts, and most of these involve click outs. With Shops on Instagram, there will be a designated area where followers can explore all of the merchants products and make a purchase directly within Instagram, with click outs only being a fallback option.
The value to Facebook is that the users stay on Facebook, they don't click out to the merchants website, resulting in more time spent on Facebook.
I haven't used these tools from the merchant side, but we are currently powering the native checkout piece for a couple of the pilot merchant's using Instagram checkout.
Wow! That DOES sound amazing!
Okay - I get it now.
And you're on the ground floor with the pilot merchant's using IG checkout?
Lucky!
Good luck and thanks for explaining this for me.