Analyzing the problem before leaping to a solution is a critical factor of a successful seller. For a merchant selling their Shopify products on Facebook Marketplace directly, sometimes, making this shift and managing the operations can be a daunting task that may result in a wastage of your crucial time and energy.
So, here is the ultimate solution to all your selling problems on Facebook Marketplace.
Issues faced by sellers selling on Facebook Marketplace
Facebook Marketplace paves a path for sellers to sell on a wider platform, establish connections and boost their social commerce. Still, as a seller, there are times when you can encounter some issues during onboarding, product upload, account setup, etc.
Here are some of the issues that you may encounter and the possible solution through which you can walk easily through hassle-free selling on Facebook Marketplace.
Are Facebook Shops and Facebook Marketplaces the same? Which is a better platform to sell?
Facebook Marketplace and Facebook Shops are two different concepts. The difference between the two lies in their functioning.
Facebook Shops
Facebook Shops is a shop within the Facebook platform that allows Facebook business page owners to convert their page into a shop and sell their products directly to their customers. It helps in building your brand’s identity.
Facebook Marketplace
Facebook Marketplace is a platform where different sellers and buyers can sell and buy products locally. Anyone can view a listing from the places like Marketplace, Newsfeed, Facebook searches, Facebook groups, and Facebook shops. Additionally, you can also filter out the products based on your location, category or price. Meanwhile, If you are interested in buying a product, you can send the seller a direct message or instantly Checkout from Facebook Marketplace.
Which is a better platform to sell?
If you are an entrepreneur with a local business or want to surface your products locally or to a wider audience base. In that case, Facebook Marketplace is a preferable option for you as you can find a considerable number of buyers with no extra cost.
While, if you are a merchant owning a business and prefer to increase your brand presence, then you can create your Facebook Shop through your business page and sell your products through Facebook Shops and display the same on Facebook Marketplace. You can also create a Facebook Shop to run ads and campaigns and grow your brand’s identity amongst the audience.
Note- You cannot sell your products and manage Facebook ads on the same page.
How to sell on Facebook Marketplace with an offsite page?
Having an offsite page means you have a Facebook Shop that enables a buyer to either “Send seller a message” or “Visit a website.” To get the configuration of Commerce Manager, you need to convert your offsite page to an onsite page. The onsite page features the checkout option that enables the buyers to make purchases through Checkout on Facebook.
The checkout option is currently available for US merchants.
You can convert your offsite page into an onsite page in two ways.
Solution 1 (Creating new Page)
In case you are managing your Facebook ads through your offsite page; you need to create a new page and a new catalogue for the Facebook Marketplace. According to Facebook policy, you cannot manage ads and sell on Facebook Marketplace with the same page.
Solution 2 ( Connect to Commerce Manager)
In case you do not manage the ads from your offsite page, you can connect your existing offsite page with the Commerce Manager and create a new catalogue for it.
Issues with the orders and products
While selling on Facebook Marketplace, you might face problems in managing products and orders across both platforms. So, here are the major issues that happen during the proceedings and its solutions.
Product visibility on Facebook Marketplace
Sometimes, you can face an issue where your Shopify products are visible on the app, but the same products are unavailable on the Facebook Marketplace. This type of condition usually arises when your product is still in the verification phase of Facebook Marketplace as every product is verified by Facebook.
If your product is in any of the verification stages, the notification will appear as “activation in progress” in the Commerce Manager. As soon as you get the approval, your product is visible on your Facebook Shop.
Why is the order skipped?
When you directly create the products to Facebook Marketplace without Marketplace connector, your order is not acknowledged by the app because of no prior information of the products. Due to this, your order is skipped even after the order is placed on Facebook Marketplace.
Solution
Map your Facebook Marketplace products with Shopify products on which the order has been placed with the help of the app. To map the order:
- Click on the “View” option.
- Go to the “Map” button to map the products.
- After mapping, your product will be automatically acknowledged from the app. You can manage your orders from a centralized dashboard.
Can you delete products from your Shopify store to Facebook Marketplace?
If you are selling on Facebook Marketplace with its listing partners like CedCommerce, you can automatically delete your Shopify products from Marketplace through Facebook & Instagram Shopping.
You have to access the Configuration tab on your Facebook & Instagram Shopping and enable “Auto Delete”, to delete the products from Facebook Marketplace directly.
Selling criteria for dropshippers and affiliate marketers on Facebook Marketplace
Facebook Marketplace is a platform offering its sellers a variety of features to initiate effortless selling across the platform. If you are a dropshipper, an affiliate marketer or a seller selling “products on-demand” products, you have to fulfil certain conditions:
- Mention your delivery option, return policy, and customer service emails.
- You need to ship the products within three days from the time the order has been placed.
- You need to have physical products to display in your store.
Payment issues
While setting up your Shop and Commerce Manager, you can come across a “Pending Payment” stage where your payment remains awaiting.
This situation arises while registering your shop through Commerce Manager, you have not fulfilled its requirements and haven’t enlisted the essential documents to the Commerce Manager.
Solution
To solve the issue with the paymentyou need to fill in the following details:
- A federal tax identification number matching your name and a state tax registration number for every state where you do your business.
- Your bank account details for the successful payment procedure.
- Your physical business address and email address Mention about your business and the category that best describes your business. A business representative name, SSN and DOB.
How can you excel the issues of Facebook Marketplace
You can sell on Facebook Marketplace by establishing your Shop via Facebook or with Facebook listing partners. By directly setting up your Shop through Facebook increases your workload as the listing of the products is manual, and you have to manage the products on both the platforms separately.
Thus, to ease your selling process, you can surface your Shopify products on Facebook Marketplace through Facebook listing partners. The Marketplace Connector assists you in establishing your business on Facebook Marketplace through the app. It enables you to leverage checkout on Facebook, with additional features like real-time inventory synchronization, order management, bulk uploading of products, handling errors, and in setting up your Shop on Facebook Marketplace with its commerce tools.
Additional tips for selling on Facebook Marketplace
Facebook is primarily a social media platform, but with the introduction of Marketplace, it has stepped into the field of eCommerce allowing merchants and brands to develop personalized connections with the customers.
While selling on Facebook Marketplace, there are certain tips you should follow to yield better results.
Optimize your product listing
You can optimize your Facebook Marketplace product listing with Facebook listing partners. Through listing optimization, you can upgrade your Facebook Shop by improving product visibility, click-through rate and you can generate maximum sales.
To rank your products high on Facebook Marketplace, it must have the searched keyword and well-structured content. Add the relevant keywords and optimize your product description, alt tags of the products, pages, product images and product titles.
Setting the right shop policy
While selling on Facebook Marketplace, as a seller, you have to comply with all the Commerce Manager policy. Before shipping, you have to review your customer’s details and orders. Also, see the type of delivery service you are offering.
While setting up your account on Commerce Manager, you need to set your return and payment policy of the products. The return policy of products is set as default for 30 days from the time the order has been delivered. In contrast, you can change this default setting from Commerce Manager for the products and set payout details to run your Facebook Shop.
Note- Mark all your orders shipped within three working days. If not marked shipped within 30 days, the order gets cancelled.
Shop tracking and promotion
Facebook offers you a variety of tools and services to help you track your shop performance and check your product visibility. You can leverage the features of Facebook analytics, Facebook insight, Social Media Marketing through Facebook listing partners.
Facebook analytics is a powerful tool that lets you track the user’s interaction on your Facebook Shop and helps you to understand your Shop performance and increase your brand reach. It also provides you with a funnel for your Facebook ads.
- Heatmap setup: A heat map is data analysis software that helps you analyze your Shop performance in the form of colours. In case, you want to know which post of your Facebook Shop gets the maximum user engagement; heat map displays you the result in a visual way which, in turn, becomes easy to understand and helps you make a decision.
- Facebook ads: After analyzing the performance of your shop through Facebook analytics tools, you can boost your product sales through Facebook Ads. The ads are of three categories:
- At the initial stage, Facebook ads are created for brand awareness.
- The second stage of the ads is for customers who have added the products on their cart but haven’t checked out on Facebook.
- The final stage of the ads is for the look-alike audience. Here, the ads are run down based on the products or the posts that have generated the maximum sales.
Note: You have to create a new page for Facebook Ads, as the products and ads cannot be managed from the same page.
Concluding it
While selling on Facebook Marketplace, there are times when you can face some hurdles; don’t panic. We have enlisted some set of issues along with the solution to ease your selling process across the platform.
You can resolve some of these issues listed above by contacting Facebook. However, you can also contact listing partners who will help you with hassle-free selling along with the steps from account set-up to the onboarding process; thus reducing the chance of any further issues. In case you are stuck somewhere, you can drop down your comments below. Our experts will get in touch with you.
The post List of Facebook Marketplace challenges & how to overcome them? appeared first on CedCommerce Blog.
