5 ways for a successful Facebook shop

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How to create a Facebook business page? How to promote business on Facebook? How to sell on Facebook? How to advertise on Facebook? How to use Facebook for business? How to make a business Facebook page? How to create official Facebook page? These are some different questions which come in mind when a person wishes to create his business shop on Facebook. To sell on a Facebook Shop, you first need a dedicated Facebook business page (not your personal page). What’s the difference between personal profile & business page? Let’s find out first -

Your Personal Profile is meant to keep up with friends and family on a daily basis. This is the place to share personal photos and status updates with people who are close to you. You can also use your personal account to directly message friends or comment on the activity they share on their personal page.

Whereas, your Facebook Business Page is all about your brand and the services you offer as a professional in your field. You should invite past and potential clients to like your Business Page. It’s the right place to collect reviews, share essential details about your business and post about industry-relevant topics.

The Facebook Shop

First, create your Facebook business page, then manage your page through the Facebook Business Manager tool. Next, either connect your e-commerce platform to Facebook or upload your product category manually. Finally, you can start selling on Facebook through your Facebook Shop. Using an e-commerce platform makes it easy to sell on Facebook because you can easily sync your product catalogue, manage sales, inventory, customers, and orders in one place. Your own e-commerce platform is what we recommend for selling on Facebook. It starts with an economical price, making it an affordable option that will integrate with all of your sales channels. Start a free 15-day trial ECommerce Suites.

Now let’s explore the steps involved in creating a Facebook shop.

1. Facebook Business Page

To set up a Facebook Shop, you’ll need to create a Facebook Page for your business. You can’t create a Facebook Shop in a personal Facebook account. The Facebook Shop feature is only available on Pages.

Having a separate Business Page is crucial for creating a Facebook Shop. But, having a Page also offers many marketing advantages over personal accounts, including:

• It gives your customers a way to find your business and follow your professional posts.
• It gives you a huge array of social media marketing opportunities.
• It offers a wide variety of budget-minded advertising tools.
• It lets you sell your products directly to Facebook’s huge audience of more than 2.38 billion users right from your Facebook page.

Once your Facebook business page is complete, it’s time to create your Facebook Shop. For that, you’ll need a way to list products and accept orders and payments through Facebook. The best way to do this is with a Facebook-friendly e-commerce platform.

2. Selling on Facebook

Facebook offers a complete in-app shopping experience via the fully integrated Facebook Shop. There are two options for selling on a Facebook Shop. If you already use an e-commerce platform, you can connect your account to Facebook and sync your products. If you do not use an e-commerce platform, you can upload and manage products onto Facebook directly.

Here are the two options for selling on Facebook:

i) Upload Products to Facebook Shop

You can enter products for sale directly to your Facebook Shop. Facebook has clear instructions that walk you through every step, including how to connect payment channels.

Is Managing Facebook Shop Manually Right for You?

If you sell just a few items and/or only want to sell through a Facebook Shop, this might be all you need. The benefit is that it costs you nothing to add a shop and enter as many products as you wish.

ii) Use an e-commerce Platform to Sell Products on a Facebook Shop

The e-commerce platforms let you list and sell products on a Facebook Shop, plus many other places if you wish. What these platforms offer over the Facebook-only option is a full suite of product listing, automated order, and shipping management tools designed to save you time. But that’s not all.

Time-saving benefits aside, the biggest plus is that you can sell just about anywhere using an e-commerce platform: your own website, Amazon, eBay, Pinterest, blog posts, and more. Going this route, the time you spend entering products into a selling system can deliver returns far beyond Facebook. Even if you don’t want to start your own website or sell on places like eBay or Amazon at first, the option is there if/when the time comes.

Is Using an e-commerce Platform Right for You?

If selling online is a priority, you need to extend your reach beyond the Facebook audience. e-commerce platforms let you do just that. They also make every e-commerce task as quick and automated as possible, from product entry to shipping updates. Plus if you ship, or hope to ship, more than 10 orders per day, you really should consider this time-saving option.

3. e-commerce Platform Options for Facebook Shop

An e-commerce platform connects seamlessly to Facebook Shop. But they aren’t the only ones. If you already sell online, there’s a good chance your online store provider integrates with Facebook Shop, too. If they do, you just need to follow their instructions to connect your store listings to your Facebook page. Then you can skip to Step 5 in this guide to see ways to market your products on Facebook and grow your shop. If you’re looking to launch a Facebook Shop with a stand-alone website from the scratch, you’ll want to consider the following full-featured e-commerce store platform plans ECommerce Suites.

4. Create Products & Link Them to Your Facebook Shop

Each e-commerce platform listed above makes it quite easy to enter product information and images, plus set up payment methods, shipping rates, and store information. But they all do it a bit differently. We won’t cover each in detail here. Instead, we’ll cover the basic information that you’ll use to create your product listings and store information pages, no matter the platform. Having this organized and ready beforehand makes the process of building your Facebook Shop listings quick and easy. Then we’ll cover a few final steps to complete in your Facebook admin screen once your Shop is live.

To create your product listings, you’ll need to assemble four key things:

a) Good Images of Your Products

A fancy camera or professional photography is not necessary to have great product photos. Simple and clear would do the job.

b) Detailed Product Descriptions

Good descriptions should be chock-full of details that sell your product, plus any sizing, measurements, weights, or other necessary details.

c) Product Size and Weight Information

These numbers can be entered with your product information in most e-commerce systems so you can print accurate shipping labels. It’s optional, but can be useful.

d) Product Numbers or Inventory SKU Numbers

These are the numbers or product codes you use to track products in your online store. You’ll also need to put together four pieces of store information to let customers know what to expect when they order from you. You can create one page or several in your online store to display this information.

Here are the four pieces of information you will need:

1. Your Store Contact Information

Email only? Email and phone? And don’t forget to list your customer service times here, too.

2. Customer Service and Privacy Policy

Here’s where you list your order fulfilment times, return policy, and privacy policy.

3. Shipping Rates and Policy

You’ll set up shipping rates in your store dashboard, but it’s nice to have a page that lists them so customers can see what you charge for shipping.

4. “About Us” Information

Brag a little about how you got started and what got you where you are today. This is a branding opportunity and a time to make your customer’s purchase more personal.

Once you have this information gathered, it’s time to enter it into your e-commerce platform. Once your e-commerce platform is connected to your Facebook Shop, the new Shop section will automatically appear on your Facebook page.

After all of the above is complete, and your Shop section appears, you probably won’t see your products immediately. Don’t panic. Facebook reviews all new Shops to make sure images and content meet Facebook shop guidelines. Basically, the guidelines state that you need images and accurate descriptions for each product.

It can take 24 to 48 hours for your Shop to be approved and populate the section. So go into this with a little patience. Once approved, as you add new products, they should automatically appear within 20 minutes or so. If not, you can re-synchronize your listings from your store dashboard to send new items to Facebook.

Once your products are approved and live, you’re ready to start selling. Now let’s explore ways to promote your shop, grow your Facebook audience, and make some sales.

5. Market Your Products for Facebook Shop Success

There’s one really nice thing about having your products listed for sale in your Facebook Shop: Your products and potential customers are already there!

Your Facebook Shop products are primed and ready for promotion to your Facebook followers and countless potential customers. With your products already housed on Facebook, you can easily and quickly select certain products or groups of products to promote via Facebook posts and ads. Plus, your viewers don’t have to leave your Facebook page to learn more about your products or make a purchase. This increased engagement within Facebook leads to more sales for many Facebook Shop owners. This is why Facebook Shop is fast becoming a favourite sales channel for online sellers, with big or small business ideas.

There are many ways, both free and paid, that you can market your Facebook Shop products to followers and larger audiences, including:

• Feature products and specials via boosted posts, which are regular posts that, for a small fee, can reach large, targeted audiences.
• Run Facebook Marketing campaigns with featured products.
• Distribute offers and host contests to engage your audience and attract new viewers to your page and Facebook Shop products.

In fact, with your Facebook Shop in place, your Facebook marketing and advertising deserves some real attention. The first step is marketing your small business on Facebook. Then, start exploring Facebook’s Paid Advertising opportunities to give your business maximum exposure for a relatively small investment.

The Bottom Line

Selling products directly to your Facebook audience isn’t hard to do using the Shop feature included with every Facebook business page. Our online store platforms that integrate seamlessly with Facebook, offer the easiest Facebook Shop solution, especially if you’re new to e-commerce. We make the product listing, selling, and order management process a breeze.

Then, with the e-commerce side neatly handled, you’ll start to see your Facebook audience grow and, more importantly, start making sales.

Using an e-commerce platform is recommended for businesses selling products on a Facebook Shop, and is all but necessary for businesses selling on multiple channels, such as Facebook, Amazon, Google, and through your own website. Bigassert is a digital agency that makes it easy to manage multiple sales channels, saving you a great deal of time for as little as per month. Try it free today.

Bigassert

info@bigassert.com