In the current difficult times of the COVID-19 pandemic, a huge chunk of the population is badly hit. People have lost their jobs; businesses are plummeting, and experts say, it may get worse.
A large proportion of this population lies in small scale businesses or MSMEs (Micro, Small and Medium-sized Enterprises).
It is estimated that around 31% of such businesses have completely stopped operating. These include grocery stores, retails, restaurants, salons, small-scale manufacturing, and many more. These businesses not only need financial assistance, but they are also in need of bringing their businesses back on track.
One such company that has come to the rescue is – Facebook. It offered a $100 million grant in initial phases of the pandemic for small businesses, with the implementation of tools like gift cards, food delivery stickers on Instagram, businesses nearby, that are already in place. Over 160 million small businesses around the globe use Facebook services.
Now the company has come up with an amazing initiative called ‘Facebook Shops’. It is based on the concept that any small business can start an online shop and sell their products to many people at once. This will enable small scale businesses to reach a wider audience and sell their products online.
Let us look at some of the prime features of Facebook Shops:
1. “Facebook Shops” is Free and Easy to create:
- On the web or in Facebook app, look for an option called ‘Add Shop Section’.
- Read and agree to the policies and all the terms and conditions.
- The next step is to add your business details and set up payment processing with Stripe. You will need to create a stripe account first if you do not have one.
- Then you will need to add a description of your business in 200 characters.
- Lastly, add your products and configure the details for each product
Your Facebook Shop is ready now! Your audience will see a ‘Shop Now’ button when they visit your Facebook Page.
2. Native and Fast:
Facebook Shops are fast, fluid, and takes into consideration the shopping experience of a real shop. Ideally, the flow would be visiting a shop, browsing products, choosing the one you want, and paying the amount to the shopkeeper. You will get the same experience digitally on Facebook Shops.
3. Live Shopping:
Another great feature of this platform is Live Shopping. With this, you can engage with your viewers in real-time. You will be able to respond to viewer’s queries, know their thoughts on your products, and guide them by giving additional information about your products.
4. Integration with other Facebook-owned apps:
Other social media apps like Instagram and WhatsApp are also owned by Facebook. This means that your Facebook Shops app integrates seamlessly with these apps. You can find information related to your products through the Facebook page, the Instagram tab for shops, and WhatsApp business account.
5. Use of A.I. to create personalized shopping experience:
Facebook platform owner Mark Zuckerberg has stated that Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning will be used for a more personalized experience for users. The A.I. is called GROKNET which has a huge data set of many products posted by millions of users. This will help Facebook Shops to precisely bifurcate the categories for products, its properties, and search queries to help the visitors make their shopping decision faster and smoother.
6. Virtual Reality (V.R.) and Augmented Reality (A.R.) for true shopping experience:
Imagine trying out an outfit of your choice, virtually, without physically visiting a clothing store. This is now possible with the help of advanced technologies. Facebook has implemented A.R. and V.R. for Facebook Shops. These will help visitors to visualize the product in real-time and help to make their decision.
For example, if someone is selling home furniture, A.R. can help visitors to virtually place the object in their home. While V.R. can provide an immersive experience by allowing visitors to shop virtually and “see” the products, just like in real life.
Conclusion:
Currently, in the COVID-19 pandemic phase, small businesses need an easy way to sell their products and reach a wider audience. Due to lockdowns and restrictions in many places around the world, physical shops cannot remain open for business. But online alternatives like Facebook Shops can remain open 24/7, day and night.
Facebook’s strategy is to build a strong open ecosystem around Facebook Shops like Discovery, Consideration, Checkout, Shipping and Logistics, Customer Support. To enable more people to gain access to Facebook Shops, it has partnered with popular third-party companies like Shopify, BigCommerce, Cafe24, etc. All your products from such platforms will be seamlessly displayed on Facebook Shops.
Thus, to help recover at least some of the infrastructure and promote an online business, Facebook Shops will prove to be a boon, especially for small scale businesses. All of this points to the fact that most of the future commerce is going to be completely online and digital.
