If your charity was already using Facebook and Instagram shopping in 2020, you may be wondering what all the fuss over the new Facebook and Instagram shops is about. As the new functionality rolls out slowly, it may seem that not much has changed. However, this is only the beginning of Facebook’s plan to launch a full in-app e-commerce service, placing it squarely in competition with the likes of Amazon and e-Bay.

For large and local charities with a high street presence, Facebook shops offer a significant opportunity for digital transformation as the future of the Highstreet remains uncertain.

What’s new?

The fundamental change in the new version of Facebook and Instagram shops is in-app checkout. Customers will be able to pay for their purchases within the Facebook and Instagram apps, which should lead to less friction in the buying experience and increase conversions.

The ‘shop’ tab has been added to Instagram to give it increased importance within the Instagram user-experience and drive traffic to shops.

Products will be searchable across Facebook and Instagram. New categories and the ability to create collections will help bring in cold customers who are shopping for a certain product to your charity’s shop.

Charities will be able to offer customer service and sales support within their shops via WhatsApp, Messenger, or Instagram Direct messaging.

In the future, customers will even be able to checkout their purchases within the chat functions, so your ability to sell within the chat function will impact your shop’s return on investment. 

Live shopping, where customers can purchase products within a Facebook or Instagram Live, could become the social media e-commerce equivalent of a home-shopping network.

How do charities get the new feature?

If you were already using the old shopping feature, you will have already been prompted to upgrade. However, it will also be important to develop an e-commerce strategy that takes into account the changes to come and integrates with broader plans for digital transformation.

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Set up a Facebook and Instagram shop in six steps

If your charity does not have the Facebook and Instagram shops feature here’s how to set it up:

HEAD TO COMMERCE MANAGER 

You’ll find this option within Facebook Business Manager. Simply click ‘get started’, choose ‘create a shop’, and move onto the next step.

CHOOSE THE BEST OPTION 

Choose whether you want to set up a product catalogue manually within Facebook or integrate a catalogue from your web shop using one of Facebook’s e-commerce partners: Shopify, BigCommerce, ChannelAdvisor, Tienda Nube and Feedonomics, etc.

Connect to a catalogue held in an e-commerce service via the link that says ‘sync a partner platform’ or click ‘next’ to create a catalogue manually.

CHOOSE YOUR CHECKOUT METHOD

At the time of writing, checkout within Facebook or Instagram is only available for US-based organisations with US bank accounts, so UK charities will need to choose ‘another website’. Checkout is expected to be rolled out in the UK soon, so keep an eye out for that!

CHOOSE YOUR SALES CHANNELS

You can select any Facebook or Instagram accounts connected to the organisation’s business manager, which means you can integrate one shop across your national and local Facebook-owned channels. You will need to add a business email address before continuing to the next stage.

ADD PRODUCTS

If you haven’t added products to Commerce Manager via a commerce partner, this is the place to add them manually. Think carefully about the categories you choose and about curating collections as this may help the performance of your products in search.

SUBMIT FOR APPROVAL

Once you submit your shop for approval, you will hear back from Facebook to let you know whether it has been approved or not. If it has not been approved, you may have the option to ask for a second review. If it isn’t clear why your shop wasn’t approved, get in touch with Facebook support before requesting a second review.

The future is digital

Charity shops on the high street have re-opened their doors, but with social distancing and COVID product restrictions, the experience is hardly ‘back to normal’ for charity retailers.

Charities are already successfully raising funds from e-bay, Amazon and dedicated e-commerce platforms, but often e-commerce is a small proportion of overall retail income. When Facebook and Instagram shops are fully optimised for e-commerce and better integrated with the powerful Facebook Ads Manager, they could become a significant source of retail income for the charity sector.