SOCIAL network Facebook announced the recent launch of a Shop section for Pages in the Philippines to allow local businesses to use this as a platform to showcase their products online and connect to the more than 50 million users as potential customers.
“Many small businesses in the Philippines currently use Facebook Pages to run their businesses by using posts and messages to share products with the people who follow them,” said Nadia Tan, head of small and medium businesses in South East Asia for Facebook.
With the Shop section now rolled out in the country, she said they are enhancing the Facebook experience further by enabling businesses to feature their products in a more visually appealing way.
She said it also allows people to buy those products through messaging. “We are committed to helping small businesses better connect with the 51 million people on Facebook in the Philippines and, ultimately, to help them grow their businesses,” she noted. This free Facebook has features for merchandising, purchasing, subscription and advertising.
The Shop section for Pages allows the seller to easily showcase products with “Featured Products.”
“It is much easier to edit products and for our customers to view and find all products. We have a better chance of getting our customer’s attention with the help of better and clearer primary photo,” Harold of Maricel Online Store said.
By clicking the message button next to the product allows customers to contact the seller to learn more and arrange purchase.
Through this feature, another Facebook user, named Eljean of Exmile Crew, said it’s much easier to sell now since customers can just browse the item they want to buy and hit such button and they can know right away what item they’re interested in.
“We made about $30 to $50 after a week of using Shop,” she said of how the new offering of Facebook helped improve their sales.
People will also be able to subscribe to a Shop section to receive new product updates and other notifications from businesses.
For the merchants, a new Boost Product option will be available, allowing businesses to easily create an advertisement featuring the product.
“Our sales have increased 1.5 to two times ever since we used the Shop feature. The subscribe button notified customers each time we added a new product, which is great for bringing back customers to our Page,” Karen of Dota2Realm said.
Facebook was founded in 2004 with a mission to give people the power to share and make the world more open and connected.