Selling Products And Making Profit Via Facebook

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Social media has entered the ecommerce game and is making waves. 

In reality, social media has played a strong role in ecommerce since the beginning. Facebook began selling ads back in 2007, and the visual focus of Instagram has made it a strong platform for fashion retailers even before they introduced shopping features. 

What has changed recently is the concerted efforts by these platforms to improve sales and even introduce in-app purchases. Facebook has entered this world, although many brands still direct shoppers to their own website. 

With over two billion users on Facebook, it is an opportunity that you cannot pass by. You can make sales and grow your brand. 

Here, we are going to give you a crash course on Facebook ecommerce and what role it needs to play in your overarching ecommerce strategy.   

• What is Facebook store?
• Setting up your store
• The challenge
• Gather feedback

 

What is Facebook Store?

Facebook commerce began from the ground up, with Facebook pages being created to sell and trade items. This was made official in 2016 with Facebook Marketplace. You can list sponsored ads on Facebook marketplace, but the platform is targeted at individual sellers of used goods. 

Where you need to focus your efforts is on Facebook Store, which is sometimes called a Facebook Shop. Whether you are setting up a new business or you have used a list of our businesses to buy one, a Facebook store makes sense.

Facebook Store is a page that enables you to sell your items so that you can reach a broader consumer base. One of the great things about a Facebook Shop page is that you don’t need to have an existing online store in order to run this. You could run your entire operation through Facebook if you wish, which is a good opportunity for start-up retailers that are looking for an outlet to sell their goods.

There are a number of benefits associated with using Facebook Store, including the fact that you can get your products to appear in the Facebook Marketplace, see stats on your sales, visits, and more, communicate with your customers directly through the page, organise your products into categories and collections, and you can add an unlimited number of products. 

 

Setting up your Facebook store

So, let’s take a look at how you can set up your Facebook store. In order to do this, you are going to need a Facebook account and a Facebook business page. You may already have these. Apart from this, you must adhere to the following: agree with Facebook’s Merchant Terms and sell physical items. If you are based in the United States, you are also going to need to have a tax identification number and a link to a valid bank account. 

If you tick all of the boxes, here are the steps you’re going to need to take to set up your Facebook store…

• Go to your Facebook page to configure the Shop page.
• Set up your shop details.
• Configure your payments.
• Add a product to your Facebook store. You’ll be able to see an Add Product button, making this step pretty straightforward.
• Manage your products. You can do this under Products in the Publishing Tools section. 
• Manage your orders. You can do this under Pending Orders in the Publishing Tools section. 

 

Remember – Facebook is social media

It is important to remember that the store aspect of Facebook is effectively social media. You need followers. You have a business account and you need to use it as social media to organically show up in feeds and then draw people to your page where they will see products. Even if someone does not purchase your products, you’re going to be growing your brand visually. 

Therefore, it is important to think about creating shareable content and looking for ways to enhance your social media presence and brand engagement. Some of the ways that you can do this include:

• Make connections with social media influencers. 
• Run Facebook dynamic ads. 
• Add a chatbot. This ensures customers get their questions answered immediately.
• Engage with fan groups and other groups related to your business, for example, if you sell beauty products, make sure you connect with related pages.
• Posting live Facebook videos. It is no secret that video takes the top spot for engagement.
• Post shoppable videos, otherwise known as ecommerce or interactive technology. These are videos that enable customers to click on items. 

 

The challenge of Facebook is time management

The issue with Facebook Store optimisation is that a lot of the aspects of making effective social media posts are creative and time-consuming. You can find yourself working on this all day, every day. Plus, there are other ecommerce platforms that teams need to be on (for example, Google Shopping and Amazon), and these platforms all require extensive and specific product listing data. 

This is why you need to invest in an ecommerce platform that will enable you to automate the tasks that are time-consuming and do not need to be carried out manually. Your ecommerce platform will ensure you have everything regarding your online sales at your fingertips; you can easily track everything from inventory to sales made to shipping. You can then automate tasks and create templates so everything moves a lot easier and quicker, with scheduled posts an option too.

 

Make sure to gather and analyse feedback

Again, this is something that ecommerce platforms can assist with. You can pull data from across the web on customer trends, allowing you to tailor your activities, see what works, and optimise your efforts, so that you are continually improving. You will also be able to receive important data about your Facebook Store, i.e. purchases made, shopping cart abandonment rates and so on, and this can help you to move forward and make effective changes. 

As you can see, there is no denying that Facebook Store presents an exceptional opportunity for businesses that sell products online today. However, this is only going to be the case if you go about it in the right way. Managing everything manually is simply not feasible, so take the time to find an effective software solution. 

 

Disclaimer: MoneyMagpie is not a licensed financial advisor and therefore information found here including opinions, commentary, suggestions or strategies are for informational, entertainment or educational purposes only. This should not be considered as financial advice. Anyone thinking of investing should conduct their own due diligence.

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