# The new Facebook "Shop" feature



## CG Kid (Apr 1, 2017)

Previously we had to boost a picture on Facebook with a link to our website. But what if they never had to leave Facebook to buy your shirt?

Pros:
It's possible now with Facebook shop. I feel like a pioneer cause I've never seen a shop ad on Facebook outside of myself. Customer's don't have to enter their name, number, or email in, and usually they don't have to enter in their card info, all they enter in is their shipping address. Also, Facebook has strict buyer's protection like Paypal and connects with Stripe. Another thing I love about it is that it still fires pixels for retargeting, and you can swap out photos so you can test several versions of the same concept and not lose any engagement or shares (it's a lot better for split testing designs or photos).

The UX for the buyer is awesome. I have to enter in a tracking number within a certain period or they are refunded automatically. They get notified when I enter in the tracking number and can track shipment from Facebook. If they don't buy my shirt but click the link, Facebook sends them a notification several days later saying "XXX is still selling XXXXX". You can message a customers email, you're given a invoice, I mean the whole thing on the UX side is crazy awesome.

All that being said, I get a significantly higher conversion rate.

Cons:
Customers do opt into email marketing; However, I have to manually enter in emails into mail chimp. Also, it doesn't communicate with Ship Station so I have to manually enter in address info.

Conclusion:
I figured I'd share this with you guys, I don't know why I never see it outside of what I'm doing. I think as people get use to it and understand it's as safe for a buyer as Paypal, Facebook will become an amazing platform to sell shirts on. We need more vendors using it! Lol

Here's one of my shop listings to give you an idea.

https://www.facebook.com/commerce/products/1702073826489303/?rid=191133507896876&rt=6


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## CG Kid (Apr 1, 2017)

I should add, it has a option to save your shipping address. If people start buying through it, they won't have to enter anything in! They will select variations, hit checkout, hit place order, done. I like the shares cause it has a "buy" button, if someone clicks the image of the shirt or the buy button on a share they go straight to checkout. It also said "Your Friend shared XXXX's Product" rather than "Photo"

I hate that I'm a pioneer on this front so I'm hoping some of you try it. When people catch onto this feature, Facebook will be a beast for marketing shirts online.

I should also add, the way I promote it is sharing the product to my page then boosting with a campaign objective of engagement.


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## NoXid (Apr 4, 2011)

They did an incremental roll-out of this feature, so some people saw the option sooner than others, but I think it has been available for over a year now. I played around with setting up a shop early on, but didn't like it, so never finished it up or went live with it. But looking at your link ... I gotta say that it looks good. Great variations support (Etsy is still limited to 2). I think they improved it a bit since I last played with it.


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## jennGO (Mar 11, 2014)

Thanks for sharing I saw the feature just last week and considered it but I'm concerned I will lose control since it is all on Facebook and not hosted by me. Would Facebook control visibility? You also don't get to really manipulate SEO I thought...but Facebook pages show up in a search so I'm torn 


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## seacookie (Apr 29, 2015)

jennGO said:


> Thanks for sharing I saw the feature just last week and considered it but I'm concerned I will lose control since it is all on Facebook and not hosted by me. Would Facebook control visibility? You also don't get to really manipulate SEO I thought...but Facebook pages show up in a search so I'm torn
> 
> 
> Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


Problem with facebook is, if they disable your main account you lose access to all pages which you created. In this example your facebook store.

I had account which I used to communicate only with my cousin. So I didn't created it on my real name,but instead I used nick. I don't wanna to have facebook account, cause I don't wanna be bothered by all the freaks which got to much time and they are angry if you don't accept their friend request. They see you once in your life and suddenly we are best friends...

The time passed and I created multiple pages for my pleasure with that account.

One day I got notice from facebook, that somebody reported me and they won't passport from me to identify me. Yea sure. passport  I give my passport only to police and noone else. I send them back this picture:


"Clever" people from facebook send me explanation what is passport after they got this picture...

So to make this thing shorter, I lost that account off course 

So bottom line: If you gonna do facebook store, make sure, they can't close your primary account, and don't let facebook be your only web source of your income.


https://postimage.io/


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## NoXid (Apr 4, 2011)

seacookie said:


> ...So bottom line: If you gonna do facebook store, make sure, they can't close your primary account, and don't let facebook be your only web source of your income.
> 
> 
> https://postimage.io/


I have a number of pages for my business, all hanging off of my primary account, which is under my real name per FB's desires. I only have the primary account because you have to; I have everything on it turned off that you can turn off and do not use it for anything except to login to my business pages. But, yes, any of the platforms can dump you at any time.

It is a PITA to maintain multiple stores/shops and social accounts, but also probably a wise idea.


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## 1090gal (Aug 2, 2016)

I've been using it for about 6 months. I'm not real impressed w FB ad campaigns, even when I've created some pretty good target audiences with what they give me to work with. I also think the variables allowed and the method of entering items for sale is archaic and tedious. Some of my item pics get FUBAR'd by FB - this has happened with every sales campaign I've run (about one/month). Also, the ad campaign set-up is not the most user-friendly I've seen and the support/help for it has been beyond poor in my experience. Difficult to link FB ad campaigns to Instagram on the 3-4 occasions I've tried it. Agree that FB store favors the customer. Hope this doesn't bite the merchant in the *** over time., but people just need to realize that FB is a buyer's market. Yes, FB store availability was rolled out segmentally. 
Overall, I think it's just "ok." Better to promote a website store through a business FB page and do the details of the storefront not on FB IMO. 
Your mileage may vary, clearly. 


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## seacookie (Apr 29, 2015)

You can still make facebook store and add special 10% discount to redirect facebook people if they go to your primary store.

Go to our store to claim your 10% discount.

Just a thought. -.- And then you get mails from customers...


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## seacookie (Apr 29, 2015)

or maybe if you got money to throw out of window:

100 winners will get free t-shirt by your choice.

Share,like and sign up in our store(not on facebook) to participate in this event...

there's ton of options...


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## jennGO (Mar 11, 2014)

Good ideas above. The only thing I could think is maybe people trust Facebook more than a "random" store and would be more likely to buy? And perhaps Facebook algorithm favors internal advertising (advertising Facebook link to store) over advertising a link to a location outside Facebook. I might try it and just make the prices higher than my store to drive traffic the other way...


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## seacookie (Apr 29, 2015)

jennGO said:


> Good ideas above. The only thing I could think is maybe people trust Facebook more than a "random" store and would be more likely to buy? And perhaps Facebook algorithm favors internal advertising (advertising Facebook link to store) over advertising a link to a location outside Facebook. I might try it and just make the prices higher than my store to drive traffic the other way...
> 
> 
> Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


 You don't need to price higher. They get discount only if they sign up on your primary(as you put it ''random'') store. After you get mail from them, you get free advertisement to your buyers forever. - this is in first example
I think every e-shop have an option for new buyers discount?

You need to think what kinda people are your customers to give them the right honey and they will fly to you like mad bees.
You can test this relatively cheap. Put 5 bucks per day on commercial and run in 2 maybe 3 days? And see what happens. 15 bucks is one drink with friends.
If you wanna get more noticed probably free t-shirts is better option but much expensive.

I'm just trying to think out of box here, so don't kill me 

If I would do gamers t-shirts and I would have much money to spare i would try maybe:
share,like,sign in and you can get brand new 3xamd processor or 3xgraphic card. Gammers are nuts about those thing and word would spread out fast. But you would lose in add like that much more than 15 bucks. It all depends what you are up for.

bottom line: think out of a box if you do marketing. 
My english is kinda crap, google translator is kinda crap, I'm trying, but if something is weird to read let me know.  

Or I think many of you are doing numbers designs.
Share,like, register in our store and you can get baseball bat, glove and a ball.(not the cheap one!) 

Enough of brainstorming, It's my coffee time


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## jennGO (Mar 11, 2014)

I'm running a free t-shirt giveaway right now and it is pretty hot even though I'm only giving away 1 shirt. Small change with big results  

I don't do gamer shirts actually. But that could be a good idea (giving away expensive things) if you restrict the giveaway to people who spend $100+ in the store or something. 

I have kind of a weird store because I just sell an assortment of "trending" items and don't have a unifying theme for the store. I've been thinking maybe I should be more focused but so far I will just continue to run with it and see what happens. 

I don't collect email addresses either which is probably a bad idea. But a lot of customers buy as a guest...you're right though I should offer a coupon for email sign ups. 


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## seacookie (Apr 29, 2015)

jennGO said:


> I'm running a free t-shirt giveaway right now and it is pretty hot even though I'm only giving away 1 shirt. Small change with big results
> 
> I don't do gamer shirts actually. But that could be a good idea (giving away expensive things) if you restrict the giveaway to people who spend $100+ in the store or something.
> 
> ...


If you focus more on girls you can have perfume ad 
share,like,sign in and smell like roses


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## NoXid (Apr 4, 2011)

Good discussion, guys/gals.

I think @seacookie has the right attitude, try new stuff, see what works. Even if you have something that works great now, keep experimenting--as you never know when that "thing that works" will break or become the next obsolete internet fossil.

My trouble is facing the endless list of things *I could* be doing and getting stuck trying to figure out which I should put effort into right now. It can also be disheartening to try things and not get results ... and wondering if you are just doing it wrong or if you are chasing a myth or method that just won't work for your specific product/niche/situation/astrological-sign 

As with @jennGO these discussions eventually sink in and I start to consider doing things that I initially opposed, like email lists.

Throw stuff at the wall and see what sticks ... but mind the wall, as it is rather larger than your available time and resources.


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## jennGO (Mar 11, 2014)

Update: I decided to set up a shop and saw you can link to an external store so I'm doing that. 

Downside: no price variations so I can't advertise the increased cost for 2XL...


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## seacookie (Apr 29, 2015)

jennGO said:


> Update: I decided to set up a shop and saw you can link to an external store so I'm doing that.
> 
> Downside: no price variations so I can't advertise the increased cost for 2XL...
> 
> ...


Congrats on your new step to your goals.


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## chappy6107 (May 23, 2017)

this is great information and discussions like this always grab my attention.


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## BangkokShopper (Sep 24, 2013)

Hello, it's weird that if facebook shops can really be used to sell, why we do not get more offers to buy from FB ?

The payment can only be done with Stripe ? People from anywhere in the world can open an account on stripe ?

Thank you.


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