April Showers Bring Instagram and Facebook Shop Changes

On April 24th, 2024, Instagram and Facebook will remove the option for businesses to direct customers to an external website for checkout when selling products through Shops. After this date, purchases can only be completed within the Instagram and Facebook apps. 

This update will impact ecommerce merchants using Shops across the Meta platforms. Previously, businesses could choose whether shoppers checked out in-app or through a link to their online store. Taking away the external checkout redirects all transactions through Meta's infrastructure.

If you don’t switch over your shop, its associated features will also be unavailable, including product tagging in posts and new custom and lookalike audiences based on shop visitors.

There are clear benefits in leveraging Meta's reach and shopping tools, but merchants will lose control and insights if all sales funnel through the apps alone. As the change approaches, brands selling goods via Shops should prepare themselves and their customers— here’s how:

As April 24 approaches, decide whether or not you want to keep your shop on Instagram and Facebook. If sales are booming, it might be the right place to be. However, if you think the cons outweigh the pros and your Instagram or Facebook shops aren’t hitting the mark, consider removing your products from the shop.

If you decide you want to stay, enable checkout in the apps before April 24. Otherwise, your shop will become inactive, and product tagging will be unavailable. 

The upcoming changes to checkout on Instagram and Facebook shops will impact businesses selling through the platforms. While the shift to in-app checkout aims to provide a more seamless experience for customers, it also means losing the ability to drive traffic to your independent website. Start strategizing how to adapt to the upcoming checkout changes by weighing the pros and cons. 

By requiring in-app checkout, Meta is closing the disconnect between product discovery and purchase completion within Instagram and Facebook Shops. Shoppers can seamlessly buy items without exiting the apps and facing sluggish external websites or broken links. Keeping the checkout experience unified within the familiar Instagram and Facebook environments aims to provide faster, frustration-free transactions.

By keeping shoppers entirely within the apps, businesses lose the ability to direct traffic to their independent websites and stores. On your website, you might have an exceptional checkout process with a beautiful thank you page and systems for future customer interactions. But, with this change, users will not be able to see it. Instead, at the end of the purchase, they will see the generic purchase screen that Instagram or Facebook offers. 

For sellers focused on driving visitors to an external site, losing the checkout redirects hampers that goal. While linking to your store remains possible in Instagram bios or Stories, shop links will funnel transactions through the in-app system only. Ultimately, relying solely on embedded checkout means forfeiting control over shaping the post-purchase experience and website metrics.

By storing payment and shipping details, Instagram and Facebook Shops enable expedited checkout for returning customers, making them more likely to complete the purchase. Streamlined reordering reduces friction that could otherwise result in abandoned carts and helps increase your conversion rate.

If something goes wrong, you’ll have to contact Meta for support. Unlike issues with their own independent stores, sellers will be powerless to directly troubleshoot or rapidly fix glitches in Instagram or Facebook Shops. And widespread bugs enabling purchases could take priority over individual shop owner concerns.

Instagram and Facebook enable easy navigation from tagged social posts to Shop product pages. Interested customers can click-through directly to focused layouts displaying pricing, descriptions, and related inventory.

This refined discovery-to-checkout path retains shopper momentum, allowing clean, scroll-friendly product pages to convert the tagged item's high visibility to purchase.

On your website, you control many aspects of the customer experience. Throughout, they’re able to interact with design and language that match the goals and values of your brand. On Instagram or Facebook, the platform controls the customer experience, only allowing you to use branded content in ways they decide. So, if you want to truly encompass your customer in your brand’s essence (we’re looking at you, Tushy!), then this con may outweigh all the pros of committing to Shops.

As this deadline nears, be sure to weigh the impacts carefully and ensure they can thrive in or out of social media platforms. Although Shops on Meta apps are valuable for many organizations, it’s important to consider the pros and cons of these changes in comparison to your business goals.