Facebook introduces new ways to shop across its apps. It also announces solutions for businesses to personalise shopping with ads, and investments in technologies that will shape the future of shopping.

Last year, when COVID-19 shut down local economies, Facebook launched Shops to help businesses sell online. The company believes that the shift to digital was not temporary. One in three shoppers globally say they plan to spend less time in-store even after the pandemic is over, and almost three-quarters say they get shopping ideas from Facebook, Instagram, Messenger or WhatsApp.

“Instagram and Facebook are a new Westfield. We are making the online shopping journey more personalised, more entertaining, and more seamless. Capabilities like shoppable media, branded content, social shopping and messenger for customer service are available in Australia,” says Facebook Australia director of retail Kate Box.

“As today’s announcements scale globally, AI and AR will further evolve how customers discover products they love. Australians will be able to find products online, with visual search and try-on immersive experiences available before making a purchase. Shopping across our platforms is brimming with new innovation,” she explains.

“Today’s updates are part of our ongoing work to make shopping easier on our apps for people and businesses,” she adds.

Facebook says it will continue to support economic recovery by making further investments in Shops and waiving fees for business sellers through June 2022.

Bringing Shops to more people
Facebook claims it has over 300 million monthly Shops visitors and over 1.2 million monthly active shops.

Facebook will soon give businesses in select countries the option to showcase their Shop in WhatsApp. In the US, Facebook enable them to bring Shops products into Marketplace, helping them reach the more than one billion people globally who visit each month.

“The first big announcement for today is [that] we're bringing Shops to more places. So firstly, we're bringing [Shops] to WhatsApp, and we're bringing them to Marketplace on Facebook, which [will] make it easier for people to find [the] products or brands that they want to engage with,” explains Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerburg.

Shoppers want to be reassured with their purchases, so Facebook is giving them more information before they buy.

Facebook will expand ratings and reviews to products in Shops on Instagram. Soon shoppers will see photos and videos from the community, too. These changes will help people make more informed decisions on what to buy, and will let businesses know if they are meeting customer expectations.

Personalising the shopping journey with ads
Facebook says it wants to provide a shopping experience that is as personalised like a newsfeed.

That’s why Facebook is introducing Shops ads solutions that provide unique ads experiences based on people’s shopping preferences.

For example, Facebook is testing the ability for businesses to send shoppers to where they are most likely to make a purchase based on their shopping behaviour, such as curated products that they might be interested in from a Shop or a business’ website.

“Instagram and Facebook are also making the shopping journey more personalised. Businesses will be able to offer tailored shopping experiences based on the customers preferences through a curated collection from their Shop, their website, or even through special promotions. Customers will find products they are more likely to love!” Box says.

Facebook will explore ways to help brands further personalise their Shops ads by providing special offers or promotions to select shoppers.

This builds on existing tools for business that help them find the right audience like Shopping Custom Audiences and ads with product tags, which enable businesses to send people to their Shop directly from an ad.

Together, this suite of personalised Shops ads solutions can help businesses move customers from discovery to purchase.

“The next thing that we're announcing that I think [will] be a pretty big deal here is introducing Shops ads that [will] provide a personalised ads experience based on people's individual shopping preferences. We're launching the ability for a business to send shoppers to where you're going to be most likely to make a purchase based on your shopping behaviour,” comments Zuckerberg.

Introducing new technologies to power the future of shopping
Facebook is investing in immersive technologies like augmented reality and artificial intelligence that will be the foundation of shopping online.

With new visual discovery tools on Instagram, Facebook helps shoppers find new products, and with AR experiences, Facebook helps people visualise items before they buy.

“Our new innovations in AI and AR will help customers discover and visualise products (Visual Search) with try-on immersive experiences (AR Try On) before making a purchase,” notes Box.

This year Facebook will start testing a new visual search powered by AI. Visual search helps people find similar products—like floral print dresses—just by tapping on an image of a dress they like.

Facebook will make it possible for people in the future to take photos from their camera to start a visual search. Facebook thinks visual search will enhance mobile shopping by making every piece of media on Instagram shoppable.

“A lot of shopping discovery begins with visual discovery. And then, you know, maybe you want to see other products that are like that, or you want to figure out how to get that product. And this is the type of problem that AI can really help out with. [So] one of the things we are going to do is when you are on Instagram. We are getting ready to start rolling out experience and testing an experience that we're calling visual search,” Zuckerberg says.

Even as brick and mortar re-open in many countries, two-thirds of online shoppers say that they want to virtually try on products from the comfort of their home.

To help shoppers get a better feel for the fit of a product before they purchase, Facebook makes it easier for brands to create AR try-on experiences in Shops through new API integrations with Modiface and Perfect Corp.

Facebook launches new tools for brands to include AR product catalogues in ads that will automatically show relevant products to people based on their interests.

Facebook brings some of the biggest brands together to experiment with Live Shopping on Facebook and bringing this personalised shopping experience to viewers through Live Shopping Fridays.

Box concludes: “Live Shopping is something small businesses already do in ANZ, but it’s challenging to handle a large scale of sales while Live. We are bringing new tools to enable large businesses to scale product sales in Live Shopping.”