Facebook’s New Shop Section Boosts eCommerce Push

Facebook launched an array of new features yesterday (Oct. 12), all geared towards an eCommerce push that will help businesses capitalize on the reach of its platform.

In a blog post on its Facebook for Business page, the social networking site announced plans to test out new ad experiences aimed to promote seamless shopping and a Shop section on Pages.

According to Facebook, the goal of building these new native experiences is to enhance the ability to discover new products on mobile while also helping businesses to drive more sales.

But the first step is easing the friction points that come with mobile commerce.

“For people, the mobile shopping experience is often difficult to navigate. Customers can experience slow load times and too many steps on the way to checkout. This is bad for people and bad for marketers,” the blog post explained.

[bctt tweet=”Facebook looks to enhance the mobile shopping experience and help businesses win big.”]

Facebook is planning to tackle this by looking beyond just offering a buy button.

One of the latest mobile features it is currently testing is a new ad experience called Canvas, which offers mobile users access to a fast-loading and fully optimized screen after clicking on an ad. Canvas is designed to encourage product browsing before the customer goes to the retailer’s website to make a purchase, allowing a business to drive any number of advertising objectives, such as brand building or simply increasing sales, Facebook said.

Canvas was first unveiled in June and has been tested among a select number of businesses, but Facebook confirmed it will soon see a broader rollout in the coming weeks.

Facebook also announced plans to begin testing its Shop section for a small group of U.S. businesses, providing a single place where users can discover and buy new products. This feature will allow companies to capitalize on the more than 1 billion people Facebook said visit Pages each month to learn about businesses and their offerings.

Allowing Page owners to maximize on this exposure through a Shop section significantly increases the ways in which products can be showcased. Facebook said businesses will have the ability to link to their own retail websites through the Shop section or simply encourage customers to purchase products directly on their Page.

“Across each of these formats — from proven ad products such as carousel and dynamic products ads to new tests — our goal is to make it easier for people to discover relevant products on mobile while also driving results for businesses,” Facebook confirmed.

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