With Christmas now only 117 days away, Facebook has provided some new tips for those using Facebook and Instagram Shops as to how they can add festive flair to their Shop displays, along with some key trend notes and usage pointers that can further optimize your product listings in its apps.

In addition, Facebook’s also flagged a new label for top-rated Shops that could help provide more assurance, and drive more purchase traffic.

First off, Facebook’s outlined a range of new Shops tips to boost your in-app product listings.

Facebook’s Holiday Shop tips include:

• Ensure your catalog data is up to date and complete – Facebook notes that ‘a good quality catalog not only improves placement in search results helping customers discover your products, but also drives conversion by providing customers with the information they need to make a purchase.” Facebook also says that including more product images can improve conversion rates.
• Add shopping tags to your posts – Facebook says that product tags give your audience an opportunity to buy from “every post, story or live video on Facebook and Instagram”. Businesses can tag up to 5 products per post, while product stickers in Stories can also help to drive direct purchase activity.
• Create custom, holiday-themed Collections – Facebook advises that brands should include a minimum of eight products per collection, and use “colorful, uplifting imagery”, as well as collection titles that tie into trending inspiration and community fun. Facebook also notes that curated gift collections at impulse-buy price points (e.g. under $20, $50 and $100) can be great for boosting take-up.

Those pointers could help improve your Shop displays, in alignment with user trends, which could give your sales traffic a boost during the season.

In addition, Facebook also notes that it’s rolling out new tools over the next few weeks to provide more holiday marketing options for retailers on its platforms.

“To help buyers make more confident purchases and easily identify shops on Facebook and Instagram, we are testing a new label that identifies shops offering consistent shopping experiences.”

The new ‘Preferred Shop’ label will help provide extra assurance to buyers, by highlighting Shops that deliver excellent customer experiences, which is somewhat similar to seller ratings on eBay.

Facebook itself added similar tags back in 2015 for Pages that performed better at responding to message queries in a timely manner.

The new Preferred Shop tags serve a similar purpose, in highlighting the businesses that consistently provide positive buyer experiences, and meet customer demand, which could help to drive more activity for your Shop.

Facebook’s testing the new labels now, and will provide more info on how you might be able to get your own ‘Preferred Shop’ label soon.

Facebook also notes that it’s giving businesses additional ways to designate that they are Black-owned in their shops on Facebook and Instagram. Instagram launched a similar Black-owned label for business profiles back in June, providing another way to amplify businesses that have been more heavily impacted by the pandemic, while also maximizing inclusion within its discovery surfaces.  

These are some handy pointers, while the new ‘Preferred Shop’ designation could provide a big boost, depending on exactly how Facebook implements it, and the requirements for qualification.

And maybe, this will be the time for Facebook and Instagram Shops to really take-off, as more people look to eCommerce to buy up their Christmas gifts, and Facebook looks to further promote its shopping tools to align with these trends.

Maybe, then, it’s time to start considering your Facebook Shops options. You can learn more about Facebook and Instagram Shops here.