While Facebook started out as a way to keep up with friends, we all know that it has evolved into the creature that it is right now. One thing that they have been focusing on lately is bringing shopping experiences across their various platforms so you won’t even have to leave their apps if you wanted to buy that thing you saw while you were scrolling. Now they will make it easier to do your shopping by bringing new features to WhatsApp, Marketplace, and Instagram.
Facebook Shops, which apparently has more than 1.2 million monthly active shops, will soon be coming to WhatsApp and Marketplace. Select countries will be able to showcase their shops in WhatsApp and let customers transact with them on the messaging platform. Meanwhile, Shops products will be added to the Marketplace in the U.S so they’ll be able to reach the more than 1 billion people who visit each month. Shops on Instagram will soon be able to see ratings and reviews to their products as well.
Shops Ads will bring a more individualized shopping experience on Facebook based on their shopping habits. These Shops ad solutions will bring things like curated products, Shopping Custom Audiences, ads with product tags so you can get to the Shop directly, etc. These solutions seem to be built more for the advertisers rather than the customers so we don’t know if users will be excited with seeing even more advertising on their social media.
Over at Instagram, we’ll soon be seeing AI-based Visual Search which makes sense since this is a visual platform anyway. Users will be able to upload photos to search for something similar on the platform, even if the photo is something you haven’t posted on IG. It will make it easier to find out where to buy that floral dress you’ve been eyeing and other things that make more sense to search for visually rather than through typing keywords.
These new features are really more about helping businesses get to customers on Facebook’s various platforms. But of course it will be helpful as well for the end users especially those who want to do their shopping on these apps directly.
