Facebook is still trying to get people to use it for shopping
Facebook still wants to turn your News Feed into an online shopping tool.
Its latest effort to turn into an e-commerce giant is a new ad format that lets brands pair their commercials with collections of images and product listings in the same post.
When clicked, the images lead to a catalog of a given retailers' items hosted within Facebook. But users will be directed off the platform if they actually want to buy something.
Facebook has been trying to get people to shop through its site for years with features like buy buttons, in-platform stores and chatbots. It's even launched its own Craigslist competitor.
Most of these projects have failed to gain much traction.
The idea with this new ad type — which Facebook is calling "Collections" — seems to be to parlay some of the massive success the company has had with mobile video advertising into e-commerce.
"Three in four consumers say that watching videos on social media influences their purchasing decisions, which is why we designed collection," a spokesperson wrote in a blog post.
Facebook also hopes that fast-loading product catalogs will do for shopping what its Instant Articles did for news — streamline the sometimes clunky and inconsistent process of browsing third-party sites by roping it into the mobile-friendly reaches of its walled garden.
Tommy Hilfiger and Adidas are among the first brands to use the format.
Topics Facebook
Patrick Kulp is a Business Reporter at Mashable. Patrick covers digital advertising, online retail and the future of work. A graduate of UC Santa Barbara with a degree in political science and economics, he previously worked at the Pacific Coast Business Times.
