Facebook launches Shops! New feature to get more businesses online during coronavirus crisis

Facebook is set to make its presence felt in the e-commerce category by launching a new feature called 'Shops' which will allow small businesses to sell products on Facebook and Instagram platforms. The feature would improve the online shopping experience, that in turn will help business which suffered amid coronavirus crisis, the social media giant believes. 

“If you can`t physically open your store or restaurant, you can still take orders online and ship them to people," Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said, while explaining the feature during a video call. 

"We`re seeing a lot of small businesses that never had online businesses get online for the first time," he added. For the newly launched feature, Facebook has partnered with third-party services, including Shopify, BigCommerce, and Woo, to handle logistics.

The social media giant has also partnered with smartphone maker Samsung to train offline retailers go digital. In the first phase, Samsung and Facebook have already trained more than 800 offline retailers, with more training sessions lined up in the coming weeks. The major focus of trainings is on enabling offline retailers build a digital presence through the Facebook family of apps – Facebook, Messenger, Instagram and WhatsApp.

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The intensive training is helping Samsung’s offline retailers make their business known locally, and build credibility among the local population by setting-up their business pages and accounts on Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp. 

As a result, offline retailers are likely to witness a growth in their business as they discover more local consumers online. The presence of local Samsung retailers on Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp will help consumers reach out to their local retailers for more information about their desired Galaxy smartphone, and shop for Galaxy smartphones on the platform of their choice.