Facebook’s growing eCommerce push is set to see a significant expansion, with the company making its Facebook Shops option available to businesses in the UK and Canada, in addition to the US.

As you can see in these screenshots, from today, Facebook users in Canada and the UK will see a new Shop bookmark on the Facebook menu bar and in the mobile app.

As explained by Facebook:

“The Shop experience for consumers will feature curated collections, products and recent posts from businesses of all sizes. People will be able to see personalized content from brands within the News Feed, and through in-product notifications or small business favorites they follow.”

Facebook first announced its Shops option for US businesses last May, which it accelerated as a means to help businesses counter the impacts of the pandemic. It’s slowly been expanding its eCommerce tools since, and this new addition will bring the Facebook shopping experience to even more users, and open up new opportunities for brands to connect with browsing buyers.

eCommerce saw a huge rise in 2020, with stay-at-home orders essentially forcing people to do more of their browsing and buying online. Analysts believe the rise of eCommerce was accelerated by five years due to COVID-19.

That’s also pushed more businesses to re-assess their own eCommerce potential, and tools like Facebook Shops can offer an easier way to establish the online commerce process, as opposed to setting up your own dedicated web store. 

That does, of course, mean that you’re building on ‘rented land’, which, as many Australian businesses recently found out, can be problematic. But with the addition of in-stream payment options, facilitated by Facebook Pay (Facebook Pay is available in the UK and Canada), and with more people becoming increasingly accustomed with social shopping, it could open up new potential to maximize your sales performance.

If you’re looking to learn more on how to set up your own Facebook Shop, Facebook has a dedicated Blueprint course on the basics.