If you have an online store, or want to set one up, using Facebook is an easy and effective way to boost your sales.
Facebook Store is a page which you can sell your products through to reach a wider customer base. You might also have heard this referred to as Facebook Shop – this is exactly the same thing, just under a slightly different name.
You might be wondering why you’d want to create a Facebook Store. Surely it’s enough just to have a great ecommerce website? Well think again! Facebook has over 2 billion active users every single month. That’s too many potential customers to turn away!
With all those users out there, it’s worth setting up a Facebook Store page to appeal to them and bring in their custom. But what’s the best way to do this?
There are two ways to sell on Facebook:
1 – Use Facebook’s platform itself to create your Facebook Store, list products, and set up a shopping cart to connect payments. This is a more basic way of selling.
2 – Use an ecommerce website builder to create an online store, then automatically link your products to your Facebook Store page. This requires little technical know-how and is simple to set up and manage.
We recommend option two. It’s better to use an ecommerce builder like Shopify to sell through Facebook: not only is this option a lot simpler, but it gives your online business a much more extensive online presence.
Facebook has limited ecommerce functions compared to these specialized website builders. For example, it has fewer payment options for your customers to choose from, you can only sell physical products, and some options are only available in the US.
By connecting your online store to your Facebook Store, you get the best of both worlds!
In this article, we’ll take you through just what it means to sell through Facebook. We’ll recommend the three best ecommerce builders to connect to your Facebook Store, and show you how to set up your store with each of them.
We’ll also cover how to do this with Wix, plus we’ll answer some Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) to cover any more questions you might have. Now let’s get started on the world of Facebook selling…
What is a Facebook Store?
A Facebook store allows you to sell products through your Facebook Page.
You can set up a Facebook Page for your business that is separate to your personal Facebook account.
I won’t go into how to set up a Facebook Business Page here, but there are plenty of good step-by-step guides if you just search for them on Google.
Once you’ve set up your Facebook Business Page, you can start selling on Facebook by creating a tab for your store on this page.
When people visit your Facebook Page, they can click on your Store Tab and purchase products directly on your Facebook Store.
Needless to say, to get people to buy from your Facebook Store, you should be growing your Facebook audience / community as part of your overall business marketing plan.
Engaging your Facebook community is an excellent way to grow your business. Facebook makes it super easy for you to target users with specific interests, and it makes sharing (viral marketing) your content much easier than sticking to a single platform.
Website Builders: the Best Way to Start Selling on Facebook
Ecommerce website builders have specialized features and functions to maximize your businesses’ online presence. If you create your Facebook Store directly through Facebook, there are limitations for you and your customers: these include a lack of syncing and payment types, as well as lower quality product images.
By connecting a Shopify website to your Facebook Store, however, you can avoid these frustrations. You’ll appeal to the same wide audience while keeping the advanced ecommerce features that come with using a specialized builder.
By using a website builder to connect your Facebook Store, any purchases will automatically come out of your inventory. This will make managing your store a lot easier! You can either keep your checkout on the Facebook page to keep the user journey as simple as possible, or you can direct customers to your own website’s checkout to introduce a wider range of payment types.
So what is the easiest way to start selling on Facebook?
Website builders allow you to set up your Facebook Store quickly and easily, all without requiring you to mess around with coding at all. The first thing you need to do is set up a Facebook Business Page. This is essential for selling through Facebook and creating your Facebook Store. Then all you need to do is add an app to your online store and you’ll be selling on Facebook in no time!
Not sure what a website builder is? Put simply, a website builder is the quickest, easiest and cheapest way of creating a website or online store.
The even better news? There are a number of online store builders that can automatically connect all your products to your Facebook Store. Check them out below:
- Shopify – our highest rated ecommerce website builder
- BigCommerce – a dream for businesses wanting to sell large numbers of products online
- Squarespace – perfect for creative businesses thanks to its industry leading templates and designs
We recommend these three ecommerce builders because they offer top level service for a wide range of businesses. Shopify is a top all-round option for any online business, and has over 1 million active users worldwide. BigCommerce’s powerful features and impressive app store makes it a popular choice for large businesses managing an extensive inventory. And Squarespace is ideal for creative businesses, with its high quality designs and shipping fee calculator.
Once you have built your own online store, you can then expand your business presence by setting up a Facebook Store to start selling on Facebook.
If you’ve used an online store builder to create your ecommerce store, any changes or updates you make to your products will automatically be “pushed” through to your Facebook Store.
The benefit here is that you just have to update your product once, and your Facebook Store will also be seamlessly updated – saving you time and sanity!
We’ve included Shopify, BigCommerce and Squarespace in this guide as our recommended online store builders that work well with Facebook.
Now let’s delve deeper into each builder so you can see how easy it is to set up a Facebook Store.
How to Sell on Facebook with Shopify
Shopify is one of the best and fastest growing ecommerce website builders in the market today:
- 1 million+ active users
- Helped merchants process over $72 billion in sales
- Professional and polished design themes to make your store look great
- Hundreds of apps to expand the functionality of your online store – you can add them as your business grows and requires more features
- 24/7 support
To create your Facebook Store through Shopify, you just need to add Shopify’s free Facebook Channel app to your Shopify store. This app is included in all Shopify paid plans. Once you’ve set up the app, Facebook then creates a Store section on your Facebook page. This in turn displays your Shopify products for people to view and buy!
The Facebook Store app creates a Store tab for your Facebook Business Page that will automatically ‘push through’ your products to Facebook. You can manage your products, track sales, and process orders in Shopify, which will sync everything to display these changes in your Facebook Store.
Your customers can then browse your Shopify products on Facebook, and can even make a purchase without leaving the social site.
Check out these really cool features that Shopify allow you to control over your Facebook Store:
- Add products to Facebook with just one click! All extra product details automatically sync straight away.
- Sell through Facebook Messenger on your online store and Facebook pages. Customers get a personalized shopping experience, and can pay for and track their orders in Messenger.
- Visual Organization – You can add banners & change the number of columns of products
- Choose which products you want to sell on Facebook, and automatically import them from your Shopify store to your Facebook store
- Real-time updates – update your products on your Shopify store, and your Facebook Store is automatically updated as well.
If you set up an ecommerce website using Shopify, the platform makes it really simple for you to transport your products to your own Facebook Store.
Shopify offers a 14-day free trial, so you can get started without spending any of your own money. Click the button below to give Shopify a go.
How to Sell on Facebook with BigCommerce
BigCommerce is another very reputable ecommerce website builder, helping you build your own online store without having to worry about coding:
- Create targeted Facebook adverts to attract new shoppers and track your campaigns
- Has helped merchants process over $9 billion in sales
- Comprehensive set of “out of the box” tools to help you build your store
- Leverage different social channels to help you grow your sales (such as Facebook Store)
- Add more advanced tools through BigCommerce’s own app store (just like Shopify)
Setting up your Facebook Store with BigCommerce is pretty straightforward: you just have to follow these steps.
The process is very similar to Shopify, in that you’ll need to add BigCommerce’s free Facebook Shop app to your store. This will then make your products available on your Facebook Business Page.
Note: The functionality to check out directly on Facebook is currently only available to US-based BigCommerce users.
Adding the app is really quick and easy, so you can start selling products on Facebook in no time at all!
BigCommerce is one of the better ecommerce website builders available in the market today. In our opinion, their biggest competitor is Shopify (discussed above), and each of them has their own pros and cons.
Like Shopify, BigCommerce offers a free trial period, so you can try it and see if it’s the right builder for you. Hit the button below to get started.
How to Sell on Facebook with Squarespace
Squarespace is more of an all-round website builder than Shopify and BigCommerce. Rather than being a specialized ecommerce builder, it primarily caters to building regular websites, such as portfolios, business and blog pages.
However, it also has a range of ecommerce features, so you can create an online store if you want to. This makes Squarespace particularly great if selling online isn’t the sole purpose of your website.
Squarespace’s high quality designs and creative freedom make it ideal for building a highly customized and professional ecommerce website. Some of its features include:
- Social integration makes it easy to share across Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest
- Add maps, forms, surveys, and more to your website
- Capture long-term customers with email campaigns
- Unlimited products to sell through your online store
- Use videos, images, blog posts, and events to promote your products
- Catch customers with abandoned checkout recovery
- Mobile optimized checkout page
Squarespace has lots of different ways of connecting your social media accounts to your website. For example, you can link your Instagram and Facebook Business accounts to tag products and make shopping even easier for your followers.
You can also add Squarespace tabs showing either gallery or normal pages, as well as connect your Facebook Brand or Business page to your website.
Unlike Shopify and BigCommerce, you can’t sell directly through Facebook with Squarespace. However, you can still push, tag, integrate and share your products across Facebook, as well as Instagram, Pinterest, and Twitter.
First, you need to connect your Facebook account to your Squarespace site. You can then add a Facebook Share button to product items, gallery and events pages, and more.
One of the best features for your online store is automatically pushing content to Facebook. Remember, to do this, you must have a Business Facebook Page rather than a personal profile.
This means when you create new collections or update your products, all you have to do is click ‘Save & Publish’ in your settings. This publishes your content on your website, and shares your updates in a new Facebook post at the same time!
So, Squarespace isn’t quite as automatic or synced as Shopify or BigCommerce, but still offers strong social integration. Its strengths lie in its designs and strong visuals to appeal to customers, while using its strong social and ecommerce features to draw visitors to your website and your products.
How to Sell on Facebook with Wix
Wix is most well known as a drag-and-drop website builder. Even though its core focus is not ecommerce (unlike Shopify and BigCommerce, which are solely focused on it), Wix does offer you some pretty functional tools for the job. This is a great option if you want to sell online, but aren’t looking to scale your business on a large scale just yet.
You can sell through Facebook with Wix by using the app Ecwid. Ecwid is the number one ecommerce app on Facebook, powering over 40,000 stores. It can also link to other social media sites like Instagram and Pinterest.
- Over 109 million websites have been built with Wix
- Pure drag-and-drop interface, so you can insert content anywhere on your website
- Hundreds of beautifully designed templates
- App Market to add more functionality to your website (see our discussion here)
- Multiple payment options
- Create coupons and discounts
Wix’s ecommerce app, Ecwid, allows you to connect to Facebook and other social platforms to sell, sync and update your products. All you have to do is install the Ecwid app onto your Wix site in a few easy steps, then create an Ecwid account.
To sell on Facebook, you will need to sign up to the Ecwid Starter plan for just $7.99 a month. This is still cheaper than signing up to BigCommerce, for example, so it’s worth it if you want to sell online but aren’t ready to invest more money at this stage.
Once you’ve set up Ecwid with your Wix website, you can go about connecting your online store to your Facebook Business account!
With the premium version of the app, all your products will update automatically on Facebook if you make any changes in Wix. You can also fully customize your Facebook Store.
Ecwid’s ecommerce app makes it very simple and efficient to manage your Wix online store across different platforms.
Just like Shopify and BigCommerce, Wix offers a 14-day free trial for its ecommerce plans. This means you can try it out risk free for 2 weeks to see if it’s the right platform for you.
How to Set Up a Facebook Store: Conclusion
You no longer need to have a lot of technical knowledge to create your own Facebook Store, allowing you to sell products to potential customers who are hanging out on Facebook.
Reputable ecommerce platforms such as Shopify and BigCommerce, as well as website builders such as Squarespace and Wix, have apps that allow you to quickly and painlessly create your own Facebook store based on your existing portfolio of products.
Unlike Facebook itself, these website builders have powerful ecommerce functions to help you run your business and keep track of your stock levels while you’re selling. In today’s multi-channel world, selling on just one platform isn’t enough.
With this in mind, we don’t recommend only setting up your store just through Facebook. By linking a powerful and professional ecommerce website to your Facebook Store instead, you’re giving your online store the best chance of success!
The best part is that any updates you have are automatically synchronized with your Facebook Store – not only saving you a lot of time, but preventing any potential human errors from having to make a lot of updates over and over again.
With over 1 billion users each spending an average of over 50 minutes a day on Facebook, it’s wise to incorporate a Facebook social media strategy within your overall marketing strategy. Grow your community on Facebook – it’s an easy way to help you spread the word about your business.
Selling on Facebook: the FAQs
Which website builder is it easiest to set up a Facebook Store with?
If you choose Shopify as your online store builder, all you have to do to create your Facebook Store is add their free app and you’re good to go! Your products will update automatically, plus your customers can even checkout directly on Facebook.
You can find out more about Shopify in our in-depth review.
What is the best way to sell through Facebook?
Using a website builder is hands down the best way to sell on Facebook. You can build a stylish and professional-looking online store quickly, then connect it to Facebook. Any changes or updates you make to your products will automatically sync to Facebook, so selling through the social media platform requires virtually no effort on your part!
Is having a Facebook store worth it?
Having a Facebook Store is a great way to grow your business, allowing you to tap into new audiences and gain more customers.
It makes sharing your content really easy, so it’s a great way to market your store and products, increase sales, and boost your bottom line!
How do you increase your conversions from a Facebook Store?
To increase your conversions from your Facebook Store, you need to grow your Facebook audience. This can be done through promoting Facebook posts – if you have the budget – or simply through increasing your Facebook activity.
You could also try searching for Facebook groups related to your store and post about your store in those, which may help increase your traffic and boost your conversions.
How do I set up a Facebook Store using Facebook?
You might not want to use a website builder to create your Facebook Store, and that’s okay! These steps are for setting up a US shop:
- First, make sure you’ve set up your Facebook Business page.
- Add a Store section to your page.
- Now add your products! Remember you can only sell physical products, and you must upload each one individually.
- Manage your products – add sizes and other product details for your customers to browse.
- Set up your payments options. You can either choose to send customers to checkout on your website, submit their order in a Facebook message, or complete their purchase directly through your Facebook Store page.
- Set up your shipping options.
- Save!
Once Facebook has reviewed and approved your products, they will then appear in your Facebook Store. Some payment features are not yet available in all areas.
Can I sell digital goods on my Facebook Store?
Sadly, the answer is no! This is another important reason for not relying on Facebook for your online business. You can only sell physical products through your Facebook Store. But with website builders like BigCommerce, you can easily sell both physical and digital products!
Which payment types does Facebook accept?
This depends on where you are. For US stores, where customers can checkout directly on your Facebook page, your money will come through either Stripe or PayPal.
If you’re outside the US, you will need to arrange a different payment method. This could be a bank transfer, cash, or telephone payment. This is easiest if you allow customers to contact your page through Messenger.
English
If you are in Canada, can you add a PayPal button on your Shop Page? If so, how is this done please. I’ve been trying to figure this out for the past several months. I have a Shop page, which is no good to me if I can’t sell my items directly from my shop.
Thank you.
Hi Diane,
Thanks so much for your comment – I’m sorry to hear you’re having problems! Unfortunately you can only allow payments on your Shop page if you are in the US, as stated here in Facebook’s help center. I’m sorry I can’t be of more help! If you still want to sell online a website builder is also a great choice – you can see our comparison chart of the best ecommerce builders here. Our top two are Shopify and Wix, you can click on the links to read their ecommerce reviews – both accept PayPal payments on their paid plans. We also have an article about “Shopify Payments” which was launched by Shopify to make life easier for Canadian and US based users, so I’ve included the link in case it’s of any interest!
I hope this helps in finding a solution to your problem, best of luck moving forward with your online store!
Thanks for reading,
Lucy
I signed up for Wix and then the Facebook shop app isn’t available anymore. Is there another way to sell on FB isn’t your Wix site??
Hi Paige, it does look like Wix has removed integration with Facebook. If this is key to your selling strategy, it might be worth switching builders.
Thank you for explaining every detail in easy words, I never tried to sell directly on facebook page. However I have a shopify store that I am running for almost two years now and I have learnt a lot during my research and lost and earned money lol. I want to tell this to you and other that for successful facebook marketing with Shopify or other platforms you need Trackify pixel app to build niche audiences and get maximum ROI with targeted audience many other features. I will now setup a facebook store and will try my luck with this. Thanks Again
Hi Adam,
Glad you found the article useful. Thanks for sharing with everyone your experience. Please do feel free to share with others if you feel that they would also benefit from this article.
Natasha.
Hey Jeremy,
Great article! So practical and easy to follow, not like ‘yeah FB is good for selling. Do it. Cool’ like some other articles I’ve found researching this.
One question I had for you was related to SquareSpace. Does FB integrate with SqSp ecom sites? Is it easy to do? My main motivator is to then link to Instagram to allow easy access to our products.
Any advice is appreciated!
🙃 thanks from AUS
Hi Kirsty,
Great to hear you found the article useful!
As far as I know Squarespace DOES offer integration with Facebook and Instagram. They have some useful guides on it you might want to check out: https://support.squarespace.com/hc/en-us/articles/206544007-Using-Facebook-with-Squarespace and https://support.squarespace.com/hc/en-us/articles/206543367-Using-the-Instagram-Block
Hope they help and thank you for the comment!
does it also track content id and content type automatically if I have a general track purchases, add to cart etc. pixels installed?
Very very helpful-liked the basic terminology for everyday communication!
Is there any way to connect a Weebly site with Facebook in order to sell ?
Hi Poonam,
Thanks for joining the discussion. At the moment this is not a current feature for Weebly, website builders such as Shopify or Squarespace however do allow for this functionality. With Shopify for example, when you set up the Facebook sales channel, Facebook creates a Shop tab on your Facebook page that displays your Shopify products. It really dose depend on what you want the builder to do why not have a look at our article on ecommerce builders.
All the best,
Natasha.
Hi Jeremy,
Let me ask you this. Which tool or plugins do you use to setup the advertisement screen that pops up on the screen while visiting your site?
Thanks.-
Hi Pete,
Thanks for your comment.
It depends on which platform you are using but Wix have a great selection of plugins for pop-ups. Lumifish is one (see here) that lets you create and add a message that visitors will see upon opening your website. It’s perfect for gathering your visitors’ email addresses, promoting a specific sale, advertising new arrivals and driving customers to a specific page. Other builders also have plugins available so its just a case of having a look round and seeing which one suits your needs.
Hope that helps,
Charlie
Sir,
I have an affiliate website of word press by the woo commerce plugin in which I have created a stone from Amazon products to promote.can I push it to fb store as you mentioned above. Please guide me
Thanks.
Hi Amir,
Thanks for your comment.
There is a Woocommerce to Facebook plug-in available:
Download the zip file seen here and save it locally – woo-to-facebook-shop.zip, then log in to your WordPress blog administration screen. Click on ‘Plugins’ and then on ‘Add New’ (left menu) before clicking on the ‘Upload’ link, choose ‘woo-to-facebook-shop.zip’ file and click on the ‘Install’ now button.
Hope that helps,
Charlie
Hi Jeremy,
Thanks for the info. I recently created an online store through GoDaddy and was hoping to connect it automatically to my Facebook store in the way that you suggest. Do you know if it is possible to create the Facebook store by uploading from my GoDaddy website? When I spoke to the GoDaddy rep he said it was possible on one of their older platforms but didn’t think that it was possible any longer.
Any help you could offer would be appreciated.
Thanks!
Tim Huffman
Hi Tim,
I believe it is still possible to connect your GoDaddy Store to your Facebook Store.
It requires you to make a local business or place page on Facebook for your business first (this isn’t the same as your own, private Facebook profile).
You can then connect the two through the ‘Promote’ menu in your GoDaddy back-end.
This helpful guide from GoDaddy will help you through the exact steps.
Hope it helps,
– Tom
Hi this post is really worth for who want’s to create store on Facebook.
Can we create affiliate program in the store also?
Hi Jhon,
Thanks for your positive feedback.
I’m not too sure how possible it would be to create an affiliate style program through your Facebook store.
As the purpose of an affiliate site is to redirect traffic to the partner site, it might prove hard to implement this on a Facebook store without simply displaying the affiliate links and hoping people click through.
I understand that there are third party programs that could help you, but they are beyond the scope of our site discussions.
Facebook is not really set up to be an affiliate marketing platform, so it may prove difficult, but I’m sure there’s no harm in trying!
Thanks for reading,
– Tom
HI! We are a Not for Profit, based in the southern zone of Costa Rica.. our mission is to assist families, women and children with basic necessities of life. Our mandate is that 98% of all funds raised, goes towards helping families.
What is the best way for us to “sell” our donation packages… such as “provide a family of 4 with a months supply of food” – $100.00
We are learning and working to be efficient in our fundraising… help!
Hello Rita,
I believe the solution would be to simply add a donation plugin/app to your website, maybe the ‘Get Funding App’ on Wix, and accept donations like that? The ‘Get Funding App’ can be fund in the Wix App Market and is safe, secure and connects directly to PayPal.
As for specifying ‘recommended’ amounts, I would recommend creating content for your website around this and then adding donation buttons near it, e.g. writing some content about the cost of living and the issues faced by the people you are supporting. This is a great way of building awareness and also highlighting the costs needed to support these communities. With a donation button nearby, this could help encourage people to donate after reading.
It would be a serious design challenge to create custom donation buttons that each donated different set amounts!
I hope that helps,
– Tom
Is there a way to use my already built wordpress website? Or do I have to use the three mentioned “BigCommerce, Wix or Shopify?
Hi Ana,
It’s definitely possible to connect a WordPress site with Facebook in order to sell. You’ll want to have a look through the plugins available for WordPress to find the right one for your needs.
A good starting point would be to look into WooCommerce or ‘StoreYa’ for WordPress.
Hope that helps,
– Tom
Does this setup connect to the Facebook market place and will new items that are added to your online shop be posted to the marketplace on Facebook?
Hi Grace,
It’s probably best to quickly clarify that selling an item through a Facebook store is a bit different to selling an item on the Facebook marketplace.
The FB Store is more of an ecommerce platform like ASOS or Amazon, whereas the FB Marketplace is more of user-driven car boot sale where items can be put up for sale but where money can’t actually be exchanged and so requires a face-to-face exchange, sort of like Gumtree or Craigslist.
In answer to your question, unfortunately this setup doesn’t combine the FB store and Marketplace together as this currently isn’t possible.
Hoep that clears things up,
– Tom
Mr.Jeremy,
I did not know the breath on the scope of all the plugins available for FB business page.
Thank you for the information!!
Best,
Brandon Miller
Which is better option? I haven’t heard of wix before. I want to make online store for Hair Extensions website.
Hi Maria,
You will need to consider what features and functions would best suit what you want to achieve with your Hair Extensions website.
Should people be able to contact you? Submit photographs or view existing images, share across social networks, make purchases?
Your needs will determine the best site builder for your business. Going by your message you are interested in selling products online so it would be best for you to look into ecommerce website builders such as Shopify, Wix or BigCommerce.
If it’s a smaller business, I would suggest Wix as it has the simplest interface and the ecommerce offering is aimed at independent and small businesses, whereas Shopify + BigCommerce are aimed at a much wider range of businesses and are more sophisticated platforms because of this.
Hope that helps,
– Tom
you are the best i like it
Hi Jeremy Wong, great article. I’m doing some research in this area.
I was wondering what your opinion is using wordpress-woocommerce powered website to set up a facebook store with.
I see there’s a couple of woocommerce plugins that connect this such as storeya, display-woocommerce-shop-on-facebook. plugins
In your opinion, comparable to the above platforms you suggested? Cons to wordpress for this etc. Thanks and Regards, pHil
Hey Phil,
WooCommerce is a reputable WordPress-based plugin. In fact, they were purchased by WordPress’s parent company (Automattic).
Having said that, the primary challenge you should be aware of is that if you want to use WooCommerce, you’ll need to use WordPress and manage your own hosting for your website. WordPress is an amazing website builder, flexible, comprehensive, perfect for those who don’t mind climbing a steeper technical curve and don’t mind closely managing their website. Also, to use WordPress effectively, it’s best if you have some coding knowledge (or hire someone who has it).
Compared to hosted website builders (such as the ones we highlighted above), who will manage all the technical aspects of running a website for you, and also provide you with 24/7 support.
If you need support from WooCommerce, you can get that too as they also have a dedicated support team. But if you have questions about using WordPress (the platform), then you’ll have to dig through online tutorials from the community (which is very broad and comprehensive, but require digging) as there is no dedicated support team from WordPress.org.
So to answer your question, I would think WooCommerce is a very capable tool. But just be aware of the extra technical work you’ll have to do and learn if you decide to use WordPress. The other builders I’ve highlighted above are a lot more user-friendly and comes with dedicated support for their entire platform. So in a way, they can free up some of your time to do other things, versus having to solve your own problems if you come across a WordPress issue.
Jeremy
Great article! I was wondering if only Shopify, BigCommerce and Wix are the only “recognized” platforms for Facebook Shop integration? I would love to setup FB Shop in my Page (I’m from outside US btw) in a jiffy but I’m currently using OpenCart… Any suggestions? 🙂
Hey Charlie,
There are other ones but this guide only discusses platforms that we’ve used and support based on our own experiences.
I’m sure there are plenty of other solid platforms that can integrate with Facebook!
Jeremy
Well done. This is just what I needed. Thanks a bunch
Thanks for your feedback Halima. I appreciate it!
Jeremy
Thanks Jeremy, very insightfull article to start my venture.
Hi Marc,
Thanks for your comment, and best of luck in 2017!
Jeremy
Hi Jeremy, I recently set up my own interiors/ building design website through weebly and have decided that I would like to sell some interiors products through my Facebook page. I went about setting up ecwid only to find that the Facebook shop does not show on mobile applications like iPad & mobile. Is there any way around this? I would prefer not to have a shop on my I actual website.
Hi Jayne,
If you don’t want an online store outside of Facebook, then our suggestions above probably won’t make sense for you.
I’ve seen some software out there that allows you to sell on Facebook (without having another dedicated website). But that was a while back. Perhaps a Google search will provide you with some options?
Jeremy
I wish to setup a platform Like shopify or better a platform people can setup a store, Is it possible to connect such platform to the platform facebook page and the stores/products on my platform will show on facebook store as it is on my platform or the owners of individual shops have to create their own facebook page to advertise and have their own shop?
Hello Diego,
I think so, though creating an online store building platform is way beyond my expertise. Facebook has APIs and if you understanding how to use it you can connect your platform to it. Sorry, but this topic of building a web creator is beyond me!
Jeremy
Thanks Jeremy!
So useful thank you!
Hi Jeremy. I’ve been reading all your answers and I appreciate what I have learn from you.
I couldn’t find though, any reference to shopial, which is the e-commerce platform that shows up in my Facebook page when I hit the link “get a free Facebook store” in my Wix editor. So far it seems it integrates my Wix store to Facebook but in a limited way unless I upgrade. Besides that, I haven’t been able to know how it works or how to make changes in the free version. What I mean is that the free version doesn’t work at all, it is a facade just to get new clients. That’ s why I haven’t been sure if upgrading or not. Do you know anything about Shopial? is it functional? is it a good alternative in case I don’t want to use ECwid or shopify?
Hey Juan,
I actually haven’t used Shopial before, so can’t provide you with any feedback. If others reading this comment have experiences with them, please do share them with us!
Jeremy
Thanks for the great article. Very good information.
I already have my ecommerce website built for my product, and am wondering if that can be utilized to create a Facebook webstore rather than using Shopify, and Big Commerce, platforms?
Thank you once again. Look forward to hear from you.
NK
Hi NKabani,
Yes you can definitely create a Facebook page separately. But if you can sell directly on Facebook or if it can be integrated with your online store depends on the ecommerce platform you are using to power your website.
If the platform that you are using doesn’t offer such integration, then you’ll have to manage both your online store and your Facebook listings individually. That’s why using something like Shopify that can integrate with Facebook streamlines the entire process – less work for you.
Jeremy
Hi, Jeremy!
Do you recommend selling through a Facebook Page or Group? I like the Group idea because you can add members to the group, as well as they can add themselves. So, that eliminates the need for some users to “like” your page, since they can be automatically added. (For example, check out Discount Divas in Huntsville, AL on Facebook.)
Also, I noticed some boutique clothing sellers who ask their customers to simply comment their size, color, and email address in a post’s comment section. Is there software that automatically grabs this information and spits out an invoice?
I hope I’m making sense. 🙂
Thanks!
Hey Laura,
Great question. I think there are many different strategies with regards to using Facebook as a platform to grow your business, so if any one reading this has any suggestions, I’m here to learn too!
My immediate thought is that even though you can sell products directly on Facebook, my own preference is to lead them back to my online store to make the actual purchase (But if people choose buy on Facebook, that’s great too!)
The primary reason is that I can add them to my “customers only” newsletter, then I can follow up with them separately via emails.
The idea is that the content that you share with your newsletter subscribers should be different depending if they are existing customers, or if they are still new prospects.
For instance, you might not have to explain your brand as much if you are emailing your existing customers, versus someone who has yet to purchase and want to find out more about you.
Also, you can probably offer less discounts to existing customers since if they love your products, they are more likely to purchase at full price (or closer to full price). For your prospects, a steeper discount might nudge them over to purchase from you for the first time.
So separating customers from prospects using an newsletter email tool (such as Aweber) makes you a better marketer. It’s something I don’t think Facebook can do quite yet.
So if you post something on Facebook either in your Page or in your Group, you are just shotgunning your message to everyone (including existing customers or new prospects). So it might not be as effective.
What you can consider, however, is setting up a Group for existing customers. In theory, the members will be much more engaged and interactive since they should be familiar with your brand and products. You can also tailor your messages / marketing promos specifically to this group, which in my mind is much more effective.
Again I’m sure there are a lot of different strategies of using Facebook, so if others have input please do share / comment!
Jeremy
Hi Jeremy, great site! I was hoping to be able to create a facebook shop, but without having an actual website. Is this possible?
Hello Tamanatha,
Glad our website is helpful to you!
To answer your question – I think you can create a completely standalone Facebook shop. There are a lot of tutorials on how to do that if you just Google for them.
However, I’d suggest you consider setting up a separate ecommerce site to complement your Facebook shop.
You don’t have to have it done right away (I know just getting a FB shop up and running is hectic enough already!) but it’s something we discuss in this post here. The article focuses on Etsy, but the principle is similar. You just never know if any changes on Facebook are going to benefit or hurt your shop. So having a separate online store can bring some level of stability to your business.
Hope this helps!
Jeremy
Her Jeremy, what if I want to link my facebook shop to other e-commerce sites such as lazada or zalora? Is that possible? Or it’s only limited to shopify, wix, and Bigcommerce?
Hey Jason,
I’m not entirely sure as I’m not familiar with the platforms you mentioned. It’s entirely possible as there are a lot of platforms out there that can integrate with Facebook. Our discussion here focuses on website builders that we’ve used extensively and know very well.
You can probably find out quite quickly if you visit their websites or reach out to their support team.
Jeremy
Hi WBE aka Jeremy Wong and thanks for the info. If I add SHOPIFY to a FB fanpage, that is, NOT a website, will the products appear in search engines such as Google et al.?
Hey Ross,
I don’t think products that are listed on Facebook appear on search engines – at least I haven’t seen it anyway. But it may change down the road, maybe?
Jeremy
Hello, after 3 years working with well known Ecwid, I learned a lot about eCommerce platforms. I started with dropshipping items from eBay and Dealextreme, it was pretty good. Last year I decided to pay developers to create website for me..as I used blogspot and wordpress, and youtube and social media to promote my blogs, It wasn’t enought to get more sales. I paid for website, and I paid for SEO. Me and my family have started to produce pumpkin seed oil. For payment methods we use PayPal and 2Checkout, for larger purchases Wire payments.
Then I made Facebook fanpage, and found that Ecwid Support Facebook online store. I created it, paid $50 for ads on facebook and sales increased for 41% in 2 days.
I didn’t know the power of Facebook and store option! I just wanted to share my little story with you, this is my first post, so sorry for bad english, I am from eastern europe.
Facebook Ecwid store + Ads works great, and it will increase your sale definately!
About ecwid – they have free plan if you want to try (not trial!). You can use it free forever but it’s for 10 products,
Price for 100 products is $15 and for 2500 products is $35 per month..or unlimited products for $99 per month, but if you would like to get discount, then you should hurry up and buy your plan because discounted price now is $69 for unlimited!
They are most popular for facebook stores, anyway, if you have more questions, fell free to ask me..
Thanks for sharing Mary!
Jeremy
hey Mary
Please I would like to contact you privately, maybe through mail or facebook.
on Facebook I’m Okoli Gabriel Chukwudi.
I’m currently working on creating a facebook store to sell my products and found your explanation helpful. Thanks
Meanwhile Jeremy, you did an amazing job in this article.
If I m starting a new brick and mortar business but am not ready to sell on my Facebook page yet, what kind of Facebook page do I choose? I want to be able to add “selling” at a later date.
Hi Melanie,
Just set up a basic Facebook Business Page. You can always convert it into a store later.
Jeremy
Hi, I have been making custom shirts for over 25 years. I want to open up an ecommerce store via Facebook. What builder would one recommend; shopify, big commerce, or wix. I plan on selling local school spirit printwear and team uniforms.
Hey Huey,
That really “depends”. Shopify and Bigcommerce have much more advanced tools when it comes to ecommerce, whereas Wix have more “basic” tools when compared to Shopify / Bigcommerce.
You can see that the differences in price points reflect this point as well.
I think the way forward is for you to map out what you want the store to be able to do, then see if each of the platform will be able to do them. Don’t worry about not mapping all your requirements out – just make sure you jot down the bigger, more important items.
The best way to find out if the ecommerce builder has the features you’re looking for, is to sign up for a free trial account, and invest some time into using them. That’s the only way you can get an actual sense of which one you prefer to work with.
Hope this points you in the right direction.
Jeremy
I want to sign up with Facebook online store, but i want to use my own service merchants account that i use everyday in my business. Is that possible?
Hi Cynthia,
You can, as long as the merchant account you are using is included in one of the 70 payment processors that Shopify has partnered with. Here is the list of payment processors.
If you want to start setting up a Facebook online store that’s integrated with Shopify, click here.
Jeremy
Hi Cynthia, hi Jeremy,
to be totally honest I tried both Shopify and Ecwid and the benefits over Ecwid are just irresistible. The ability to have a feature-rich free plan, wide range shipping carriers and options for free, huge variety of payment options available for no additional cost is just a no brainer for me.
They are most popular for facebook stores, anyway, if you have more questions, fell free to ask me..
I did it. But it’s pretty easy. Now, it’s working.
Awesome! Good to hear you got your Facebook shop up and running.
Hi
I cannot find what it cost when you open a FB store? I wanted to know before I try it . Is there a limit of items ? Does cost grow per item listed or fees are charged on sale price? Monthly cost? Per click when people go into your store?. I have been looking for 2 days online and no where do I see pricing plans or fees? Maybe you have a phone number to call someone to ask?
Thank you!
Setting up a Facebook page doesn’t cost you anything. However, if you want to integrate it with an ecommerce builder such as Shopify or Bigcommerce, then you will have to subscribe to these builders’ services. But Shopify and Bigcommerce offer you a 14 day and 15 day free trial, respectively. So give them a shot to see if you like them.
Jeremy
Interesting, my issue with the Facebook store is still that it is behind the scenes and not frontend of my Facebook page. Let’s be honest, most of our followers (and most people in general) spend their time in the Newsfeed, and nobody is clicking into backend of a Facebook page.
I’ve been using the software of a company called Mbeddo for my Etsy store where you can do sales into the Newsfeed (their program puts a call-to-action Buy Now button into a post) and sales are processed in one click on the following page.
Hi Elliot,
If you are living in the US, you can also insert “Buy” buttons directly into your newsfeed items (see more discussions here).
But in general, I haven’t seen Facebook stores set up directly on a Facebook Business Page either. But what you can do, in addition to showing your store tab on your FB Page, is pin a post so that it is always displayed at the top of your FB page. And have the Post lead your visitors directly to your store tab, or at least just tell them to click on your store tab.
So it’s just a workaround to get people to land on your store page. Not ideal, but may work well.
Jeremy
Is it possible to have the facebobok-store WITHOUT a blog? If you need a domain for registration, could’nt it just be a big thumbs up on it describing your product? So all the payments go trough facebook,and orders get e-mailed directly from the facebook-store
Do you mean if you can run an free standing Facebook store, without having it be connected to an ecommerce website?
I’m not entirely sure if you can, as even though you can display a store on Facebook, you’ll somehow need to power a purchasing process, such as a shopping cart, and as far as I know Facebook doesn’t provide that (at the moment anyway).
So that’s why ecommerce builders such as Shopify makes it easier for you to create a Facebook store, and bring them back to your ecommerce website to conduct the check out process.
Shopify and Facebook has also partnered up so now Facebook users can purchase products directly on Facebook news feed. But the actual check out / payment procedure will be powered by Shopify.
Jeremy
Shopify has the ability to sell on facebook alone, without a shopify website. It is also cheaper, about $9 per month. Check it out on the shopify pricing page.
Jeremy, thank you for your detailed overview of these sites. My question is how is a blog integrated into these online stores? Is the blog stored and space counted?
Thank you
Barbara
Hi Barbara,
You can definitely create a blog with the website builders I referenced above (Shopify, Bigcommerce, Wix). They are all automatically hosted / saved by the builders and so you won’t have to worry about that. There should be no limitations as to how many blog posts you can create.
Hope this helps!
Jeremy
Does Facebook charge any fees for you to host a store?
Hey Dan – I don’t think so. Not that I know of anyway!
Jeremy
Is there any open source software for this purpose?
Hi Ahsan,
I’m not sure but it won’t surprise me if there is a few. The challenge is that you’ll have to be a bit more technical to make things work, which can be a bit time consuming as you grow your Facebook store as making updates and general maintenance work can consume time.
With the software / programs as discussed above, they take care of most of the technical work so you can focus on growing your business.
Jeremy
Yes
Wow, got to learn a lot about facebook store. But I wan’t to know whether Facebook store’s pouplarity is high or less than OLX and quicker.
Hey there,
I think each platform has its own pros and cons, and more importantly, each platform has its own unique set of users.
So depending on what business you are in, if you think your ideal customer tend to be on Facebook from time to time, then that should tell you if Facebook is going to be a good business channel for you.
But it’s hard to say sometimes so the best thing to do is not to guess, but to test it out to see if it works for you!
You can either start engaging other Facebook pages (e.g. a fan page about photography) so that people may find you there through your interactions with others. Or you can advertise on Facebook and get people to visit your Facebook page, which can have a store there.
Hope this gives you something to think about!
Jeremy
I had the same problem with my Shopify store not supported mobile on Facebook. ShopTab, one of the Facebook store apps not listed, provides a mobile version of their Facebook store. Here’s their site: ‘www.shoptab.net
Hi Jeremy,
Among these three platforms, which one does support Facebook Store in mobile version? I tried Shopify’s Facebook Store (to have a new tab integrated on my Facebook page) but it seems only work on desktop, not mobile browser or official Facebook app.
Thanks,
Kitt
That’s a great question Kitt. I’m not sure if the FB mobile app supports custom tabs.
Have you tried asking FB’s support team, or even Shopify’s support team to see what they think?
– Jeremy
Hi Jeremy,
This is what Shopify replied:
“Unfortunately the facebook store is not available on mobile devices for viewing. We wish that it could be but unfortunately this is out of our control, facebook controls which apps are available via mobile devices and currently ours is not one of them.”
I’m surprised that this is a known limitation for most facebook store implementation considering the huge growth of mobile usage these days, and no permanent solution to this from any vendor. I only found a workaround by StoreYa so far – https://storeya.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/203852508-How-can-one-access-my-Facebook-store-via-mobile-tablet-
Thanks anyway for your reply and good article.
Cheers,
Kitt
Hi Kitt,
Thanks for sharing this piece of intel! Much appreciated.
I agree, a lot more people are surfing FB on their mobile devices. I’m hopeful that it’s something that will be updated soon, as online shopping on FB using mobile devices can be a massive market!
– Jeremy
This article is great! I already have a Wix website and was tossing up whether to start selling via my facebook page or Website. Awesome to know that I can do both for hopefully the one price!
hey Dan depends on the store app you use like AddStore is free I use it for art what they do which is different is set your shop up for u. my shops called crazy scotsman with a chainsaw if you want to see how it looks on fb. my page issnt that popular but from the little traffic that came in I sold around 50-50 conversion which is awesome
yea Jeremy people are definitely opting in on mobile as a shopping preference now