How To Create A Shop For Your Business On Your Facebook Page

Shop Section To Your Facebook: As of the end of 2019, Facebook is still the most highly used social media site in the world. It has well over 2.4 billion unique monthly active users, seconded by none. In terms of overall visits, it comes after only Google and YouTube, which is understandable. 

Even after a slew of controversies and sticky situations, it seems that nothing can put a dent in the user base of this extremely popular social media platform. There had been a slight slump in 2018, as people became wary, with 42% halting use for a few weeks and 26% deleting the app altogether. However, it came out stronger than ever, with a makeover and cool new additions that brought back the majority of its lost audience.

This goes on to prove that nothing can beat this site when it comes to viewership. Needless to say, if you want the world to know something, this is the place you need to be in. This goes for promotion and advertisement too.

A 2018 TechCrunch study showed that 15% of all Facebook users shop on the site, which amounted to 800 million monthly users within a year and a half of Facebook Marketplace being launched. Companies also took full advantage of this. In fact, 85% of American businesses have been using the platform for marketing their products since then. 

The thing that works best on Facebook is that it is easy to target the necessary demographic without needing to mandatorily spend money. The simple tools of Facebook available to all users can be easily utilized to create a booming business. Free features like Facebook Pages can be used as your storefront, Messenger can be used to communicate with customers, and Groups can be used to provide notifications to your customers, especially your loyal patrons.  

The best thing of all is that you do not need any specialized knowledge to set up your shop on Facebook. It is just as easy as setting up your Facebook profile. This guide will layout the steps so that you can create your Facebook shop easily and by yourself.

Turning On Access to the Shop Section

The first thing you need if you want to create a Facebook shop is to have your own Facebook page with admin access. Creating a Facebook page requires having a Facebook profile first. You can create your Facebook page in this manner:

• Copy the URL facebook.com/pages/create to the address bar of your browser and go to the page. 

• You will get the option to choose between two types of pages – “Business or brand” and “Community or public figure”. Click on the “Get Started” button of the suitable option.
• You will need to log in at this point using your personal account. Once done, fill in the required details like page name, category, and description on the left. You can see the preview on the right and toggle between desktop and mobile views.
• Click on “Create Page” and then, “Save”.

If you are already logged in, you can directly do this simply by clicking on the “Pages” item in the menu on the left of your home page and click on “Create New Page”, also on the left. Or, you can click on the “+” button on the top right of your home page and click on “Page” to directly go to the third step. 

The process is different from the app. In that case, perform the steps below:

• Click on the triple-stacked horizontal bar menu icon on the top right of the screen once you open the app. 

• Scroll to the bottom and click on the “Pages” button. 
• Click on the “Create” button on the top left and then, click on “Get Started”.
• Enter a page name, select page type, enter the URL of your website if you want to connect it, and add an image to identify your page, clicking the Next button at the bottom each time.

• Click on the “Done” button once completed.

To add the “Shop” section to your page, do as follows:

• On your Facebook page, if you do not see the “Shop” option in the horizontal menu bar or the dropdown menu from the arrow on its right, click on the “Edit Tabs” option in this menu. Conversely, you can also click on “Settings” in the menu on the left and then, click on the “Templates and Tabs” item on the left. 
• Browse the list and click the sliding button beside the “Shop” option.
• You can also hold and drag to rearrange the order of the options as before.

This is for the new revamped view on Facebook. In the Classic view, the process is slightly different, as given below:

• Open the page on your Facebook.
• If you do not see the Shop option on the left menu, then click on “Settings” on the top right.
• Now click on the “Templates and Tabs” item on the left.

• If you see the “Shop” option in the list, click on the “Settings” button on its right and then “Save”. If it is not there, click on “Add a Tab” at the bottom and click on the “Add Tab” button beside “Shop” on the list. Once done, the “Shop” tab will now show in the list for you to click, hold, and rearrange its position in the list.

How to Start Selling Products on Your Page?

Once you have the “Shop” tab on your page, it is time to actually set up the storefront. You can do this simply by following the steps given below:

• Click on the “Shop” tab on the home page of your Facebook page. 

• As soon as you do so, you will see a pop-up asking you to agree to the “Seller’s Terms and Policies” which includes subjects like “Listing products for sale”, “Deliveries, returns and disputes”, and “Treatment of user data”. Click on the checkbox below saying that you agree and click on the “Continue” button.

• You will next be asked to select the checkout method that you want to use. Your choices will be between “Message to buy” and “Checkout on another website”. Choose the right option and click on “Continue”.

Source

• Now choose the currency for transactions from the dropdown menu and click on “Save”.
• Your Shop page will now be activated. Click on “+Describe what [shop title] sells”.
• Add a description for your shop and click on “Save Changes”. You can make other changes too, like change the cover photo and the display photo, edit the description, add buttons to make the shop more interactive, and so on.
• Now you need to add some products to sell on your page. For this, click on the “Add Product” button at the bottom of the page.
• A pop-up pane will appear where you have to provide product details. The very first thing to add is photos and/or videos of the product. There are certain guidelines for posting visual media for your products that you can look at by clicking on the “recommended photo guidelines” link beside the section.

• Next, add a suitable name for the product in the “Name” text box.
• Add a price for the product. There is a sliding button under this that says “This product is on sale”. Activating the button will show another text box labeled “Sale price”. If your product is on sale, you can use this functionality to display both the original and the sale price.
• Add proper and self-explanatory information about the product in the “Description” text box.

• Activate the sliding button beside “Share this product on your Page” to allow the product to be published on your page as soon as it is approved.
• Activate or deactivate the “Inventory” sliding button to denote if the product is in stock or out of stock respectively.
• Set the “Visibility” of the product as “Public” or “Unpublished” from the dropdown menu.
• Finally, choose the “Product condition” from the “Condition selector” dropdown menu from among “New”, “Refurbished”, “Used (fair)”, “Used (good)”, and “Used (like new)”.
• Finally, click on “Add Product” to add your first product.

Techniques to Add Products in the Shop

There are two ways you can add products to your Facebook shop. The first is directly through the Shop tab on your Facebook page and the other is through the Catalog Manager. We will discuss both methods and their subparts one by one. 

Facebook Shop Tab

We have already talked about how you can add products to your shop directly from the Shop page. There is another way you can do it, which is given below:

• Open your Facebook page and click on “Publishing Tools” on the left or the top, depending on whether you are on the new or classic Facebook view.

• Scroll down the page. In the menu on the left, towards the bottom, you will find the second-last menu section to be “Shop”. Click on the first subsection, “Products” under it. You can also punch the above two steps together by going to the shop page, clicking on the Settings icon dropdown menu beside the description, and clicking on the “Manage shop” option.
• Scroll back to the top. You will see a pane that is meant to show the list of all the products published on your page. There will be an “+Add Product” button on the top right. Click on it.

The rest of the steps will be the same as before, where the pop-up pane will appear for you to add the product details.

Catalog Manager

When you add your first product, Facebook automatically creates a catalog for the Shop. You can access the Catalog Manager either from the Shop page through the “Manage your catalog” button or by clicking on the catalog you want to access from www.facebook.com/products. There are three ways you can add products to a catalog. The first is the manual method, which is done in the following way:

• Click on the “Add Items” button on the top right of the Overview page or the “Add Items” button in the middle of the Items page. You can access both these pages by clicking on the respective item in the menu on the left of the Catalog Manager page.
• Select the “Add manually” option and press “Next” at the bottom right.

• Add one or more images of the product, a title, description, price, and optionally, the content ID, website link, and sale price of the item under the “Essential information” subsection.
• Choose the visibility, availability, and optionally, the inventory of the product under the “Availability” subsection.
• Under the “Categorization” subsection, add the condition and optionally, the brand of the item.
• You can add options to create variants of the product under the “Variants” tab. 
• Finally, click on “Add product”.
• To add more products, click on “Add another product” and repeat the process.

You can also use a spreadsheet file in CSV, TSV, XML format, or, most recently, from Google Sheets too, containing all the required information about your products, known as a data feed, to upload items in bulk. You can do this a single time or schedule regular uploads. You can do this as given below:

• Click on “Add Items” under the “Add your items in bulk” box in the Overview page or the “Add Items” button on the top right of the “Data sources” page.

• Select the “Use bulk upload” option and click on the “Next” button.
• Choose from one of the three options provided under the “Choose upload option” section, which are “File upload” for a one-time upload, “Scheduled feed” for hourly, daily, or weekly uploads, or Google Sheets, for automatic upload from a Google Sheets file. Then, click on “Next”.
• If you choose “File upload”, drag and drop your file from a folder in your computer in the space provided or click on “Upload File”, navigate to and select the file to upload it. The maximum allowed file size here is 100 MB.
• You can check your file for errors by clicking on “Check File” under the “Check for issues” subsection. You will have to copy and paste multiple rows from your file into the debugger that appears and click on “Validate”. If any errors are detected, you can correct them and then upload the file. Finally, click on Next.
• Input a name for your file.
• Provide a default currency for the products and click on Next or Upload.

To set up scheduled uploads, you will have to have the file saved on a hosting site like Google Drive or Dropbox. The file size limit, in this case, is 8 GB. To set up a scheduled feed, do as follows:

• Select the “Scheduled feed” radio button under the “Choose upload option” section and click on Next.

• Copy and paste the URL of the file in the “Enter URL” text box. The URL must start with one of http, https, ftp, or sftp, and it must be in one of CSV, TSV, or XML (RSS/ATOM) formats. Enter the username and password to access the file under the “Save login details” section in case it is password-protected. Click on Next.
• Choose among hourly, daily, or weekly updates or activate the “Add automatic updates” toggle if you want an upload happening automatically each time you update your source file. Press Next.
• Give a name to your scheduled feed.
• Enter a default currency and, as before, click on Upload or Next.

To use Google Sheets for your upload, follow the steps below:

• First, you need to create your Google Sheets file. To do so, open Google Sheets from your browser. Make sure you are logged in through your Google account.
• Select “Blank” for “Start a new spreadsheet”.
• Click on the File menu and then, click on the Import option.

• Go to the Upload tab and either drag and drop your file from your computer folder or click on “Select a file from your device” and navigate and select your file.
• Click on “Replace current sheet” in the new window that appears and then, click on “Import data”.
• Provide a file name for the workbook and fill in all the required information, always on the first worksheet only.
• Click on the File menu again and click the Share option.
• Click on “Copy link” and turn the access option to “Anyone with the link” if it is “Restricted”.
• In your Facebook tab, select “Google Sheets” in the “Choose upload option” page and click on Next.
• Click on Next again and paste the copied link in the “Enter URL” text box.
• Now select how often you want your uploads to happen and at what time, then click on Next.
• Input a name for the data source, choose a default currency, and click on Upload.

For all the bulk upload methods, if you are not sure exactly what information is to be added to the file, you can click on the “Create File” button under “Add trusted websites”, select the “Facebook Page Shop” checkbox in the pop-up, and click on the “Download File” button to download a template spreadsheet file containing all the columns you need to fill and even an example of a dummy product.

The last way to add products to your Facebook Shop is by using a Facebook pixel. This can only be done if you have a catalog created for e-commerce products, have a pixel installed, and have microdata tags added to your product pages on the shopping website you have. You can do this by:

• In your Catalog Manager, click on Data sources on the left and then, on the “Add Items” button.
• Select “Use a pixel” and then Next.
• Select the pixel to be connected and then, click on Next.
• You have the option to select “Add filters” and put a limit on the number of items your pixel can update.
• Click on “Add trusted websites” and enter all the domains, including country-specific ones, that you want to use as sources for the information on your items. Enter the naked site domain, ie, devoid of the “https://: and “www.”. Click on Save and then Next.
• Provide the default currency and click on the final Next.

It can take up to 24 hours for the pixel to be ready, so you must be patient.

How to Delete Products From Your Page?

You can also delete products from your Shop page or the Catalog Manager. In the first case, do as follows:

• Go to the Products page available under the Shop section under Publishing tools just as before.
• Click on the checkbox and select all the products you want to delete.
• Click on the Actions dropdown menu at the top and click on the “Delete Products” option.

Confirm to delete those items.

To delete products using the Catalog Manager, just follow the steps below:

• Under Items, hover the mouse pointer over the items you want to delete.
• A checkbox will appear on the top right that you have to select.
• Select more items in this manner if you want to.
• Click on Delete.

How To Access Insights of Your Facebook Shop

You can access the Insights for your Facebook Shop in the following way:

• Open your Facebook page.
• Click on the Insights button on the left or the top, depending on the view you are using.
• Click on the Orders option, which is the last item in the menu on the left.

You will be able to see your earnings and the number of orders from here, and also choose the time period for which you want to view the data.

How to Promote Your Facebook Shop Section?

Promoting your Facebook Shop will help you achieve your business goals more easily through the power of marketing. You can do that as given below:

• Open your Facebook page and click on the Promote button on the horizontal menu bar on the page or the bottom left in the menu, according to your Facebook view.
• Choose a goal from among “Get more calls”, “Get more website visitors”, “Get more messages”, “Promote your page”, and “Get more leads”. Select the second-last option if you want to strictly promote your page.
• Read the terms and conditions provided and click on the “I Agree” button in the pop-up that appears.
• Choose how you want the ad to look by providing a suitable description and adding an image or video.
• Inform if this is a “Special ad category”.
• Provide information about the audience, duration, and daily budget for your ad.
• Provide a valid payment source using the “Add Payment Method” button.
• Click on the “Promote Now” button.

This will publish the ad post.

Conclusion

Setting up a storefront on Facebook can do wonders for your business, given the overwhelming percentage of the population that uses Facebook regularly. You can pull the majority of your audience right from here. The best part is that you will not have to spend a dime if you do not want to.

Yet, you will be able to enjoy the benefits of the wide and penetrating reach of Facebook to market your business. The largest brands in the world have used the advantages of having a shop on Facebook. It is time you do the same.