Facebook Encourages Shopping Through its Groups with New Features
Retail Dive | November 16,2021
As consumers become more comfortable with social commerce, Meta announced the rollout of multiple features for shopping within its Facebook Groups aimed at helping users find recommended products and support the communities they're a part of.
Facebook's Shops in Groups feature lets users buy products from within their Facebook groups. Facebook will also show product recommendations in its groups based on what other members have recommended when a user asks for guidance. Users can then purchase those items through Facebook. The introduction of live shopping for creators is a continuation of Meta's experimentation with livestream commerce. Facebook highlighted beauty and fashion brands Sephora, Clinique, and Abercrombie & Fitch in a series of live shoppable videos through their Facebook pages. Both Facebook and Instagram have doubled down on facilitating shoppable commerce this year. The Shops feature was added to WhatsApp, which allowed sellers on the messaging app to integrate their Shops products into the marketplace. Instagram announced that it was pivoting away from photos and focusing instead on creators, video, messaging and shopping. The platform enabled ads within its Shop tab for select U.S. brands, including Deux, Clare Paint and Away.
A Top Product Mentions feature will promote product discovery in shoppers' news feeds by highlighting recommended products from groups they're a part of, per the announcement. The company has also begun testing a live shopping tool for creators, enabling them to partner with brands and showcase products. The company has expanded its ratings and reviews, letting people see reviews from e-commerce sites before making Facebook and Instagram purchases. Instagram also now allows businesses to add users' product images to their product pages to let customers view non-marketing product photos before buying something.
Social media platforms are focusing more on social shopping features as the behavior becomes more prevalent. Shoppers are predicted to spend more money via social media channels, especially younger consumers, during the upcoming holiday shopping season. More than two-thirds of Gen Z shoppers will shop via nontraditional channels, including Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram and YouTube.
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