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| Facebook announces the next phase of e-commerce |
With the growing focus on e-commerce, Facebook has announced a new suite of shopping and discovery tools, including shopping lists for the WhatsApp Store and Facebook Marketplace, and new search options.
The questions were announced in a live broadcast from company president Mark Zuckerberg, who also said that Facebook and Instagram stores now have more than 300 million visitors each month.
Zuckerberg also reports that there are more than 1.2 million active stores on its platform each month, a respectable number given that Facebook only launched Store Options a year ago.
WhatsApp stores are the biggest advertisement as these stores allow businesses to present their entire store in a single messaging app. This allows users to find related products and contact merchants for more information.
“We introduced the Store on WhatsApp to make it easier for people to find products or brands they want to do business with,” Zuckerberg said.
While WhatsApp is the most used messaging app in the world, monetizing these audiences has been challenging.
People don't want to see ads in messages and ads on WhatsApp (its own version of Stories) don't work.
This forced Facebook to search for alternative income models, including promoting businesses right in the app.
Zuckerberg noted that companies only need to open a store once to start businesses on Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, which can also expand e-commerce opportunities.
Facebook's E-Commerce Ambitions:
In addition, Facebook launched a store listing. With the new content, the store's product list has been expanded to include the market.
This gives brands more opportunities to connect with interested shoppers, and Facebook also provides more opportunities to promote browsing and shopping.
In addition, those who create stores no longer need to do anything to list their products on the market and display them in relevant searches.
Facebook is still testing the best way to do this, but it would be another way to encourage widespread shopping behavior on the app.
Facebook has also introduced new personalized store ads that display products based on people's personal shopping preferences and past behaviour.
“We enable companies to send buyers where they want to buy based on their buying behavior,” Zuckerberg said.
These ads direct users to carefully selected companies that match their registered interests.
Facebook is adding visual search tools to Instagram. This feature allows users to scan real items or use uploaded photos or videos to find listings of similar products.
The company is also offering product branding, testing for dynamic AR ads, and expanding its AR testing partnership around the world.