Facebook is solidifying its foray into e-commerce with the announcement that the company is currently testing apps for direct shopping. The app features will allow users to make purchases directly from the Facebook app.
Features have been added on Pages for businesses to better interact with their customers on the platform. The company is also optimizing its standalone app, Messenger, to provide services such as home repair. WhatsApp, which Facebook has acquired last year, is also being used as a means to make purchases online.
Although Facebook boasts its one billion active users, a large fraction of which use the mobile app, few users are interested in shopping via the mobile phone, as it is a cumbersome experience according to a report from The Washington Post,
With the app features that are being tested, Facebook hopes to make the experience more convenient for its users. "We're looking to give people an easier way to find products that will be interesting to them on mobile, make shopping easier and help businesses drive sales" Emma Rodgers, head of product marketing for commerce of Facebook Inc. said. Product sales gained through mobile purchases only amount to less than 2 per cent of all sales, according to a research by E-Marketer.
To raise this figure, Facebook hopes to make mobile shopping easier by allowing users to look through businesses and merchandise without redirecting them to another website. Users will instead see a page that shows information regarding the business and the products that it sells. A "buy now" button will be available to more users soon.
Even before the tools and features have been added to Pages, many users have already seen the potential of Facebook as a platform to make business. Users make albums of their products and sometimes indicate that a like or a comment count as an order. They also caption the products with pricing details and such, and others regularly update Pages they put up for their businesses. Recently, Facebook has offered verified pages to local businesses in some countries. Being verified indicates that a page is an authentic representation of the business on Facebook.
