Instagram's bottom bar now includes a small shopping bag, added in November. Facebook launched Shops in May, when every store in the country had closed its doors, and Instagram added product tags to Reels a few weeks before Christmas.
Facebook's intention is clear: to let people shop without ever leaving the app.
Many people who started selling products from home this year are wondering whether they can do without a website. It is possible, but we do not recommend it.
What are Facebook Shops and Instagram Shopping?
A Shop is a storefront built from a product catalogue. You set it up in Facebook's Commerce Manager, choosing a few colours and the products to display, and the same catalogue feeds both your Facebook Page and your Instagram business profile. On Instagram, you can then tag products in posts, in stories and now in Reels. A person sees a sweater in a photo, taps it and gets its name and price.
What happens next depends on the country. In the US, some sellers offer checkout directly within Instagram. In Canada, the customer is sent to your own website to complete the purchase. This detail is more important than it appears: for a Canadian shop, Instagram is an excellent display window, but the cash register remains yours.
To qualify, you need an Instagram business account connected to a Facebook Page, physical products and a shop that passes Facebook's review against its commerce policies. Some categories are refused outright. The review can take a few days, sometimes longer, and the reasons for a refusal are not always easy to understand.
For the broader context, Wikipedia's page on social commerce offers a good overview. The concept has existed for well over a decade and has seen many unsuccessful attempts. What has changed is that the major apps built it into the screens people use every day, and a pandemic then pushed everyone online at the same time.
Should you build a second product catalogue for Facebook?
No, you should sync the one you already have. The common mistake is entering products into Facebook manually. This works for five products. At fifty, prices drift, sold-out items remain displayed, and a customer orders a product that is no longer available.
If your store runs on Shopify, BigCommerce or WooCommerce, there are official methods to connect the catalogue so it updates automatically. Shopify offers its Facebook channel; WooCommerce offers the Facebook for WooCommerce plugin. Once connected, a price changed in one place is updated everywhere.
If you do not have a store yet, we recommend starting with that step. A simple online store with clear product names, genuine descriptions and quality photos is the source the Shop will draw from. Once that foundation is solid, the social side is essentially a setting to switch on.
Why keep your own online store as the main one?
Our experience building on third-party platforms, going back to the Raincity days in Vancouver, consistently leads to the same conclusion: a platform is generous while it needs you, and then its rules change.
Facebook Page reach is the clearest example. Pages once reached a good share of their fans for free. Today, a post from a small business page reaches only a small proportion of its followers unless you pay to boost it. This change was never put to a vote; it happened gradually, year after year.
A Shop works on the same principle. You do not own it. Facebook decides what is allowed, what is approved, how products are shown and whether your account is in good standing at any given time. If an account is flagged by mistake, which does happen, the storefront disappears with it.
Here is the structure we recommend:
- Your website is the store. Orders, customer emails and the return policy are all centralized there.
- Facebook and Instagram Shops are display cases pointing back to it.
- Every sale that comes from Instagram should, wherever possible, become a customer you can reach directly, through an email signup at checkout or a card in the box.
This last point is often overlooked. Followers are rented; an email list is yours. If you sell online, it is worthwhile to start a small newsletter the same week as the Shop, even if you send it only once a month.
In which photos should you tag your products?
In authentic photos, not only in ads. This is where small brands have an advantage. Large retailers mostly place shopping tags on polished campaign images that look like advertisements, and people have learned to scroll past them.
A small shop can tag products in images drawn from everyday life: the mug on your own counter in the morning light, or a customer's photo, reposted with their permission, with the product tagged. This kind of post holds attention, and the tag turns an attractive image into a two-tap route to the product page.
Stories also work very well: show a restock and tag the product. Reels are so new that the effectiveness of shopping tags in that format remains to be seen. It is nevertheless worth testing a few, since it requires only some time.
One practical precaution: tag products, but not in every post. If every photo carries a price, your feed becomes a catalogue, while your followers follow you for other reasons.
Is Instagram Shopping worthwhile for a small shop?
For most small brands, yes. If your catalogue is already well organized, setup takes an afternoon, and Facebook charges nothing to open a Shop. You are giving people who already follow you a shorter path to purchase, which is a clear advantage.
We do recommend, however, not making it the core of the business. A shop with a simple website, a working checkout, a small email list and an Instagram Shop pointing back to its site is in a much stronger position than a polished Instagram account that leads nowhere.
This year, social media is where customers will discover you, and your own site is where they should complete their purchase.