The basic principle for any business is to start where the customers are.

In the past, businesses opened stores in places with high customer traffic, but online, various social platforms serve as digital meeting places, providing customized brand stories and experiences to the community and communicating with customers.

In this online age, social media is an important marketing channel and place of communication with customers, and its representative, Facebook, has made a full-fledged entry into the e-commerce business.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced on May 19 (local time) that 'Facebook Shops', a feature that allows users to sell products by linking with Facebook and Instagram, will be launched in the United States.

The service is said to be planning to rapidly expand its service area in the coming months, and now anyone can create an online store on Facebook and Instagram for 'free' through Facebook Shop and Instagram Shop, and through this, sellers can decorate online stores with different designs that can show off their brand value through Facebook Shop.

Of course, even before launching Facebook Shop, there were many people who sold products through Facebook and Instagram. This was a method of leading consumers to purchase products by entering a 'purchase page link' along with a product description in related content such as product photos, card news, and videos.

It was possible in the past to display catalogs, etc., by linking products registered with Shopify to a Facebook shop page or Instagram account, and to induce purchases to the product page through shopping links. However, now it is possible to directly configure and sell Facebook shops by linking Shopify to Facebook shops. For this digital shopping experience, we provide convenient functions to create store fronts optimized for Facebook shops and Instagram.

Facebook Shop: Create a brand store for Facebook and Instagram

Facebook Shops is a simple store version on the Facebook and Instagram mobile apps, providing a storefront for billions of users to easily find and purchase your products on the social networking app.

Although it is only available in the United States for now, Facebook Shop comes with its own payment solutions, Facebook Pay and Instagram Checkout. It also provides customer service and tracking solutions for delivered products, which are provided through integration with Facebook’s acquired mobile messenger WhatsApp and Instagram DM.

Bring your products to the digital marketplaces of Facebook and Instagram, and provide the same shopping experience as your original store on each channel, on any device. Customize the colors and layout of your Facebook shop to express your brand concept and product characteristics, and organize and display collections based on product characteristics, just like a Shopify store.

Customers can quickly find the products they want in the Facebook shop, and through integration with Shopify, products, inventory, and management are all fully integrated with the Shopify store, allowing exposure and operation on many sales channels through the Shopify admin.

Preparing for a Facebook Shop

With the addition of social channels available on Shopify, Shopify users can quickly offer these new mobile shopping experiences to their customers.

If you already have access to product tags through the Instagram sales channel, Facebook Shop will automatically become available in the coming weeks, and you will be notified directly when it becomes available. You can set up a Facebook Shop on Instagram, and a Facebook version is coming soon.

If you haven’t set up product tags on Instagram yet, you’ll be able to use Facebook Shop in a few months. To prepare your store, simply add a new Facebook channel in Channels. It’s easy. Detailed management is available through various sales and marketing applications on Facebook. Sync products in your Shopify store through Facebook Channel and log in to your account on Facebook Shop once, and they’ll be automatically linked.

Now, all businesses are becoming online businesses, and we need to meet customers on Facebook and Instagram, where customers spend their time. Haven't started a Facebook shop yet? You can start communicating with customers on your Facebook shop right away by simply adding a channel.