Finding customers is heavy lifting for any beginner small business. But leveraging a network of 2.5 billion consumers categorized by age, action, and interest can certainly help. And Facebook is happy to step in and fill that gap.
Monetizing your existing social media presence is an ideal way to grow any fledgling new business. And depending on what tool you use, that experience can be an easy one, or… well, a not-so-easy one.
Ecwid E-commerce has always been a champion for small businesses hungry for easy and effective ways to sell online. With Ecwid, you can tap into 10+ sales channels, including Facebook and Instagram, to grow your reach on platforms where your customers already spend most of their time — AND control all of that from a single dashboard.
We’ve been partnering with Facebook for years to give you access to some of the best social selling tools available for your online store:
- Facebook Shop
- Instagram Shop
- Facebook Product Catalog (a fancy file that’s filled with important product details like pictures, prices, and titles, to easily create product ads)
- The Facebook Pixel
- And Facebook Messenger.
Selling on social with these specialized tools can put you lightyears ahead of competitors who are still mired in the traditional ideas of social sharing. With Ecwid, you can automatically upload (and sync) your product catalog to both Facebook and Instagram, drive sales with dynamic Facebook and Instagram advertising, and support your customers with Facebook Messenger right on your storefront.
Sell Products in Facebook Shops and on Instagram
Getting your products on Facebook opens up some awesome e-commerce opportunities to grow your online sales:
- Sell your products through Facebook’s familiar (and popular) interface
- Get a Facebook shop section on your Business page that’s easily accessible across all devices for all your page’s fans
- Help customers find products faster with a simplified search feature that organizes products into collections (if you’re on Ecwid, your existing product categories will be automatically synced into Facebook collections to make set-up even easier)
- And tag products in your picture posts to improve visibility in users’ feeds.
More on Ecwid’s social selling tools for Facebook →
A single product catalog is used across Facebook and Instagram for fast and seamless connection and sync with both platforms. Once set up, your product catalog can be used to reach over 2 billion potential customers on Facebook plus another billion on Instagram.
If you have a Facebook Business Page connected to your product catalog, you can get an Instagram Shop to:
- Tag products in Instagram posts to let users easily discover them
- Sell right in your Instagram Stories with product stickers
- Get your shoppable posts featured in the Explore section to be seen by thousands of potential customers
- And receive a permanent Shop tab on your Instagram Business Profile with all your tagged products to let shoppers easily access your purchasable products.
More on Instagram Shops with Ecwid →
If you want to do things the hard way, you can head over to Facebook to create your product catalog manually. OR — our recommendation — create a catalog once with Ecwid to easily sync and upload to Facebook, Instagram, Amazon, eBay, Google Shopping, Etsy, and wherever else your entrepreneurial heart desires. We like the latter.
Advertise Across Facebook and Instagram
The beauty of Facebook advertising lies in its large audience and flexible targeting options. Whether you specialize in sailing watches, quinceañera dresses, or sequined bell-bottoms, there’s a pretty good chance your target audience is hanging around on Facebook (and Instagram).
Facebook Product Catalog works with a variety of Facebook ad types and formats, including Dynamic ads that automatically show your product catalog to the most relevant audience across Facebook, Instagram, the Audience Network, and Messenger.
Facebook advertising supports targeting for all sorts of interests, age groups, and locations, in addition to retargeting your store visitors, looking for more people like your customers — you name it. And Ecwid’s integration with the Facebook pixel helps you use customer behavior data as well (page views, abandoned carts, etc.) to show your ads to more relevant audiences.
More on Facebook ads with Ecwid →
Support Shoppers in Facebook Messenger
When you shop in a brick-and-mortar store, there’s always someone you can ask for help. Of course, that’s not necessarily the case with online stores. But if you sell on Facebook with Ecwid, you can easily add Messenger to your online storefront to answer customer questions in real-time. What’s more: studies have even shown that having a live chat on your storefront can boost conversions by up to 45%.
Connect Facebook Messenger to Ecwid →
Manage Your Store Easily
While it’s possible to manually sell in Facebook shops or on Instagram without an e-commerce platform, there are some crucial elements that you might be missing.
- Shipping integrations: Ecwid calculates shipping rates automatically for major providers like UPS, USPS, FedEx, Canada Post, Australia Post, and Royal Mail to let merchants know exactly how much to charge their customers for shipping and avoid paying for excess costs out of their own pockets.
- Catalog management: E-commerce platforms like Ecwid support bulk edits, stock level control, and per product tax settings. For a merchant who’s just starting out selling online, those capabilities might not seem all that important. But when you start managing your store day-to-day, we promise, you’ll be glad you have them.
- Discount coupons: A flexible discount system is the bread and butter of e-commerce stores. Discount coupons can effectively lure new shoppers and retain existing ones. With Ecwid, you can set up discount coupons in percentage and absolute values, combine them with free shipping, and even assign them to specific customer groups. Out-of-the-box social media e-commerce tools? Not so much.
- More sales channels: Ecwid products can be sold on multiple websites, Facebook, Instagram, Amazon, eBay, Google Shopping, Etsy, in-person using POS integrations, and in a native e-commerce mobile app. All from a single dashboard.
And we continue to partner with Facebook to offer even more benefits to Ecwid merchants, including free Facebook traffic for their Gift Cards in a number of countries during COVID-19. Don’t have an e-commerce store yet? No worries. We’ve got a lightning fast way to get your business online for free.
June 5, 2020 at 11:30PM
via https//www.brucedayne.com/
Kristen Pinkman, Ecwid Team, Khareem Sudlow
