Facebook tests new shopping feature
Facebook tests new shopping feature Facebook

Facebook said it will soon introduce news feeds dedicated to shopping ads to facilitate the mobile shopping experience and make it easier for both customers and businesses to come together. Analysts said the new shopping feature places Facebook in competition against online retail giant Amazon.com.

“On Facebook we’ve seen that people are coming to our platform not only to connect with friends and family but also with products and brands. In fact, a survey suggested that nearly half of people come to Facebook to actively look for products, with a majority of them discovering new products in News Feed, Pages, and Groups,” says Facebook.

Since June, the social media giant has been testing a new immersive mobile advertising format called Canvas. The ads look like normal sponsored posts on News Feed. But once clicked, the user can scroll through the images, text and videos in full screen and even browse through the products before navigating to the retailers’ website.

Last year, Facebook introduced the dynamic carousel format for News Feed ads that enabled marketers to upload multiple products browsed easily on mobile devices. Now, with the latest update, users on desktop or mobile devices can just click “Buy” on the ads in the News Feed and purchase a product without leaving Facebook. Previously ads on News Feed were not optimised since navigation to a retailer’s website was cumbersome.

Moreover, Facebook will introduce a new Shopping feature called “Favorites” that will be the only place where users can find, share and purchase products. The tech giant will test the feature with a small number of businesses in the U.S.

In the coming days, Facebook aims to include new content to the feature. This means users won’t have to look for products in various areas like News Feed, Pages and Groups.

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