Facebook Testing A Dedicated Shopping Feed That Features Retailers’ Posts About Sales

Image courtesy of (Pixteca | Len & Pix【ツ】)

Facebook is continuing its effort to push users to shop within the confines of the social network, announcing today that it’s testing a dedicated shopping feed that will feature deals and sales from different retailers’ pages.

The Shopping feed will feature posts and photos about products on sale from different retailers “in a single place for people to more easily discover, share and purchase products,” Facebook announced in a blog post about a number of other changes its made to help retailers connect with customers.

The Shopping section will only include a “small group” of retailers for now, Matt Idema, head of monetization product marketing at Facebook told Re/code, including businesses that are trying out the social network’s new “Shop section” on their Pages. Within that tab, companies can choose to link to their own retail websites or test a way for shoppers to buy directly within Facebook.

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A limited number of users are included in the test, according to Emma Rodgers, Facebook’s product and marketing lead for mobile app ads and commerce told TechCrunch. Users included in the test will be able to access the feed through the Favorites section of the Facebook app’s navigation menu. The products you see in that section will be customized depending on your interests.

Rodgers says a survey showed that 50% of Facebook users head to the social network looking for products, so the dedicated feed could help highlight items they’re interested in, separate from the deluge of posts by friends and family in the main feed.

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