How to create a shop on Facebook Shop with product catalog

Since practically every physical store now needs to sell its products online, Facebook has decided to open a new section of its huge site that allows everyone, for free, to create a store.
Thanks to Facebook Shop it is therefore possible, through a guided procedure and without any technical difficulty, put your product showcase online so that they can be viewed and purchased directly from the Facebook store.

Facebook Shop can be very useful for small shops to sell online.
The store on Facebook works a bit like Amazon and allows you to create a list of products to be put on sale and then manage all stages of the purchase, including shipping as well as payments. Unlike the Marketplace feature, where anyone can place ads for sale, with Facebook Shop you create a real showcase page with the list of products, photos, descriptions, images and videos, prices, details on payment, delivery and returns and also with comments and questions from other people.
The only thing that cannot be done is to complete the transaction directly from the Facebook Shop page. This function, for the moment, is only active in the USA (so to buy in the Facebook Shop from Italy it is still necessary to go to the seller’s website or send a private message).

How to create a Facebook Shop

To create a Facebook shop it is necessary have a Facebook business page. Furthermore, the Facebook Page must be registered under a sales category (for example Retail company). You can check and change the already existing page category by going to the page profile, then clicking, on the left column, Edit Page Information. Alternatively, you can go to page settings and then edit the category in the section Information.
If you don’t have a page yet, you can create one without any problems. We have written a guide on how to create a Facebook page (it takes three minutes) and you can start from this link. The important thing, during the creation phase, is to choose the type of Company page and then put a category linked to the words Sale O trade.
From the created page, follow i steps below to add the store:

• Step 1: Open the page settings, go to the “Templates and Tabs” section, Scroll down and then enable the “Shop“. From this section it is also possible to move the Shop tab up, in order to make it easier to see and open on the page.
• Step 2: Go back to the page, select “Other“in the series of links under the cover (where there are Home, Events, Reviews, Photos) and go to the Shop. From here you can create the store product list. The same thing can be done by going in Publishing Tools and then on Products.
• Step 3: In the initial Shop activation procedure, Facebook asks you to choose the method of purchase on the site. At the moment you can only choose to complete the purchase on your website or via private message.
• Step 4: In the “Products“, press the button to add a product and write the title, description, price, any discount if it is on sale, conditions (if used, new, refurbished, etc.) and then add one or more photos and videos. In the product creation form you can also choose visibility to all and availability. An out of stock product can be set as unavailable without having to delete it. An invisible product will be hidden from the page Store.
• Step 5: Once you’ve added a product to sell, you can create a collection. The collection is a list of similar products or featured products. Products already described can be added to a collection. From the Shop page you can press the button Manage catalog to open the product management page.
• Step 6: With one or more products highlighted in Facebook Shop, the last step is to manage orders. From the page, press in the left column on the link Publishing tools. From here, scroll down the left column to find the section dedicated to the Shop and click on the section to see the list of Orders e Pending orders.

Now you can add all the products you want to sell, create collections and then preview the shop with all the items (you can press the View as button to check how the shop looks to visitors).
With some changes, you can add the integration of other payment tools or simply redirect a user to the store’s website or some other online shopping cart (for example on Ebay or Amazon).
In the end, creating a sales page on the internet has never been easier, you just need to configure the product descriptions and all the details of the catalog in order to have a fully functional sales space. This is a great option for those who cannot afford to pay to create professional online shopping, and Facebook Shops have no usage limitations. Any number of products can be added to the store to sell and the page can be customized as desired. Not to mention that Facebook Shop can also be integrated into Instagram and WhatsApp Business.