San Francisco (AFP)

Facebook is accelerating the development of e-commerce on its platforms thanks to "Large containment", which increases the need for small businesses to solicit consumers where they are: online.

The social media giant launched on Tuesday a new tool, called "Facebook Shops", which allows brands to create a "store", a kind of personalized showcase on the platform, to highlight their products and their history, and facilitate the sales.

"It will be free to create a + store," said Mark Zuckerberg, the group's boss, during a presentation on the network on Tuesday.

"Our business model is advertising. If the" stores "have value for businesses, there will be more people online and we will make money like that."

SMEs using Facebook Shops will have the option to pay for advertisements that redirect consumers to their storefront, which will be the same for Facebook and Instagram, and, later, for Messenger and WhatsApp.

The new tool should also allow Facebook to increase the time spent by users on its various applications, and thus to collect even more data, an essential engine of very fine and very large advertising targeting.

- Do not leave me -

"The experience must be fluid and inspiring. You will be able to explore the world of brands in more detail, without having to leave the app," summarized Layla Amjadi, product manager of Instagram Shopping, during a press conference. .

Facebook Shops will be gradually made available over the next two months to the 160 million or so companies that already use the social network ecosystem.

The interface has been in the works since last year.

The Californian group has accelerated its development, "in the hope that it helps companies to survive and to build an online presence in a context where purchases will increasingly take place on the internet", explains George Lee, director product management at Facebook.

"A third of the US SMEs we interviewed for a study say they are not operational at the moment," because of the pandemic, he said.

"A third of them only have activity online," he adds.

With the social distancing measures, Facebook finds itself in a paradoxical situation, with a strong revival of engagement, but a monetization complicated by the cuts in advertising budgets of companies.

- "Live" shopping and augmented reality -

The internet giant has decided to focus on the "opportunities" and "things to build", which arise during the crisis, in the words of Mark Zuckerberg, spoken during the presentation of the financial results of the first quarter .

However, SMEs represent the majority of Facebook advertisers.

In the United States, some of them will be able to test a "checkout" button, which already exists on Instagram and allows you to pay for your purchases without being redirected to the merchant site.

The goal is to remove a maximum of barriers that stands in the way of the consumer once he has spotted a product, such as having to enter his credit card number or ending up on a poorly designed website.

The social network will also work on "live" shopping, that is to say the integration of links to products in videos broadcast live.

"Over 800 million people watch + live + videos every day on Facebook and Instagram, including many tutorials and product launches," said Mark Zuckerberg. "We will test this functionality very quickly."

He also promised that brands will be able to use augmented reality effects, already tested in the past, for example to give consumers the possibility to visualize like sunglasses or a lipstick on their face.

© 2020 AFP