Facebook founder and chief executive officer Mark Zuckerberg with joy mentioned that stores on its e-commerce portal Shops have exceeded 1 million sellers and more than 250 users interacting with the merchandise. Furthermore, he realizes the fact that it is still too early, but they have over 1 million active Shops, and more than 250 million people actively interacting with Shops every month. So, he believes this progress to be really amazing in terms of being able to ramp up some of this stuff and all of the different tools that now exist.
“I think that the next five years are going to be really explosive in terms of the potential across a lot of these verticals,” he stated in a discussion on the audio-based invitation-only social app Clubhouse.
Facebook had introduced Shops in May 2020 for e-commerce and social selling. Small businesses can set up one store for both Facebook and Instagram and let shoppers checkout and pay either on the business website or right on Facebook as long as the store enabled checkout.
The main purpose of these Facebook shops was to help small businesses struggling to survive amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Although the focus is small businesses, the selling portal is open to businesses of all sizes. The shops provide a platform, giving power to sellers over items they wish to feature, create product collections and also tell the story of their brand. Sellers can chat with shoppers through WhatsApp, Messenger, or Instagram Direct to answer questions, offer support, and more.
The social media giant also teamed with companies that could provide tools and solutions to streamline the digital setup, including, Shopify, BigCommerce, WooCommerce, Channel Advisor, CedCommerce, Cafe24, Tienda Nube, and Feedonomics.
From the time it has been launched, numerous new features have been put into force across all of Facebook’s apps, for example- live shopping, loyalty programs, and more.
In its mission to help small businesses during the pandemic, Facebook launched a hub last year that offered general business information, virtual training, and more. It also enhanced Shops in August to offer an in-app shopping experience.
Related: Shopify gives Facebook and Instagram an e-commerce push; launched Shop Pay