Facebook closes “Live Shopping”

Facebook has decided shut down functionality that allowed content creators to livestream product sales to your audience.

Live Shopping was launched on Facebook in 2018

Called “Live Shopping”, this tool was launched in 2018 and was first tested in Thailand, and later in 2020 it was made available to the more than 2,910 million users that Facebook has around the world, even with its own tab. Now the company has announced that “Live Shopping” will no longer be possible as of October 1 and that the tab will be removed.

The decision responds to Facebook’s strategy of focusing all audiovisual products to become Reelssomething that matches the announcement, just a few days ago, that all the videos posted on Instagram become Reels.

However, it does go against the trend that shows that, especially influencers, it seems more appropriate to make sales or recommendations of products live, instead of leaving them as product placement within its contents.

In any case, it is true that it is an upward trend in markets like China, but beyond Asia it does not seem to have as much acceptance among users. In fact, TikTok also removed similar functionality for its US and European users just a few weeks ago.

Be that as it may, from Meta they point out that consumer habits are changing, and that is why it makes sense to carry out this closing and turning of the commercial strategy. “Consumer behaviors are changing and they are moving towards short video formats. That is why we are changing our focus towards Reels, both on Facebook and Instagram, since they are the product of short Meta videos”, the company has acknowledged.

The company’s focus on Reels explains the latest decisions regarding the Instagram algorithm, which now looks more like TikTok and shows more recommended content, much to the discontent of many users. So much so, that Instagram has already indicated that it will go back and rectify the new instructions by which it is guided when showing content to users.