Facebook Shops attempts to take in "small businesses" once more

Today Facebook attempted again to get "small businesses" to jump onboard with a system called Facebook Shops. With this system, businesses will be able to sell items directly through Facebook or connect to their 3rd-party website. They're also introducing a more all-inclusive Instagram Shop experience in the very near future. Facebook suggested this is part of their effort to work more closely with partners like Shopify, BigCommerce, WooCommerce, ChannelAdvisor, CedCommerce, Cafe24, Tienda Nube, and Feedonomics.

Facebook's positioning this system of updates to their ecommerce ecosystem as giving small businesses "the support they need." The brands listed above, said Facebook, will "help small businesses build and grow their Facebook Shops and use our other commerce tools."

Per Facebook, they'll be starting roll out Facebook Shops today. If you're all about getting in on the ground level, you'll want to take a peek at the Privacy Matters entry for Facebook Shops on Facebook and stay tuned.

In very related news, later in the year 2020, there'll be a new tab in Instagram – one that looks like a shopping bag. So you'll have the profile button, home, search, the plus (to add a new Instagram photo/video, and the shopping bag. That'll lead you directly to Instagram Shop.

This should effectively turn Instagram into the money and commerce-centric monster we always knew it could be. At least since Facebook acquired the company outright, right? Facebook's release this week also mentioned connections to WhatsApp for messaging, so the whole Facebook-owned family of companies can get in on the profit-making adventure, with your products at the heart of it all.