If you are running an e-commerce business already, it’s likely you are very familiar with how important Facebook is when it comes to reaching new customers. Facebook’s potential role in your business just got a whole lot bigger.

So, what is Facebook Shops?

Facebook shops is different from its current services, such as Catalogue manager, Facebook Store & Facebook Marketplace. It continues its ever-growing expansion into the world of sales. If you have used Facebook Marketplace before you will be somewhat familiar with what Facebook is trying to achieve here. Marketplace was created as a destination for peer-to-peer sales, Facebook Shops will allow you to sell your products directly to customers without ever having to leave Facebook.

The initiative by Facebook hopes to bring together many of their existing and future e-commerce platforms together, to create a broader ecosystem that can be rolled out across the entire Facebook family of products; such as Instagram, Facebook, Whatsapp, and more. One of these methods is to move customer service into Messenger - for any questions but eventually even take payment through the chat platform. Some stores in the US have already had this functionality through Instagram for a year but it is yet to open up to any store who would like to use it.

This new service will be free to use for any business as it hopes to drive traffic and boost consumer engagement on the platform.

So, what does this mean for the ever-changing e-commerce landscape?

There is no denying that this is going to be big. Just 'how big' remains to be seen, but we can look at another very, very famous e-commerce Giant that has continued to cause massive disruption; Amazon. Amazon didn’t always offer the wealth of products and stores they do today. When Amazon started, it aimed to create a digital storefront for books. As time went on Amazon CEO Jeff Bozos saw an opportunity to open Amazon up to other stores to sell their own products. I'm not going to bore you with the whole story, but it's safe to say you probably have an Amazon account, buy Amazon products, talk to Amazon smart speakers, watch Amazon Prime TV.. let’s just say it worked out.

Is this Facebook's aim? Well, yes... and no. Facebook doesn’t have the distribution network that Amazon has, which includes hundreds of fulfilment centres, tens of thousands of delivery drivers, trucks, and even Prime Air. While I’m sure Mark Zuckerberg would love the comparison, Facebook shops has a long way to go.

Facebook is positioning this as an opportunity for smaller sellers to connect to customers. In fact, Facebook is looking to partner with restaurant owners so customers can buy food and have it delivered through Facebook. Facebook isn’t taking on any of the responsibly of fulfilling orders - it will solely be a place for you (as a business) to have a digital store-front. It will be on your company to organise delivery.

This move will ultimately bring together social and e-commerce in a way we have yet to see. It will be easier than ever for customers to explore a range of products from thousands of businesses in one place. With no fees, it’s likely to draw a lot of new and existing business to the platform.

What does this mean for e-commerce? Only time will tell.