Currently dropping the jaws of e-commerce platform users the world over is Facebook’s announcement of their new Facebook Shops initiative, giving users the ability to sell products directly through Facebook-owned social platforms (Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, etc.). This is a staggeringly significant development in the world of e-commerce and may have far-reaching effects on not only smaller businesses’ ability to rise into profit-making existence but also on the current-default decision to develop branded websites as a whole.
Consider the current journey a user takes when introduced to a company; you may see an ad on Facebook (or on one of the millions of sites or apps that Facebook has advertising spaces on). This ad is designed not necessarily to sell you anything but to pique your interest in the brand itself. After this point, you’ll head to the company’s website to make your mind up about them yourself. Among the current generation of rabid internet users and shoppers, the identity of a brand plays as great a role as the products. We want to buy from companies that we actively wish to support, and a giant part of generating that desire to support is based on what we feel when we visit a company’s own space, their website. Websites aren’t easy to build, they’re complicated, they’re expensive, and they require fitting a company’s vision of themselves into the parameters of codes and boxes. However, once you’ve reached the light at the end of that winding tunnel, you have a place in which to shout out who you are, with your content, your design, your brand ethos, and your personality.
Now, the value of having a place to come home for many smaller businesses is great, but what if a platform comes out that can offer you somewhere to operate for less than a fraction of the cost? Absolutely, there is value in having a website, but there is an upfront cost too, and if the potential fast revenue offered by selling on the Facebook Shops platform overshadows the value and desire of having your own unique website, we may see a rise in companies forgoing the great open sky of website ownership, in order to fit themselves into one of the undoubtedly more rigid and templated slots that they can climb into amongst the Facebook Shops platform.
In short, if it no longer seems financially sensible to put time, effort, and money into developing your own website, will we begin to see a diminishment in smaller brand uniqueness as companies begin to exist solely within the templated confines of Facebook?
This will, of course, raise the demand for brands to put thought into having a unique vision for their social media voice. Where once we’d have long-form ‘The History of Our Company’ pages and ‘Meet the Team’ site sections, we now might see a greater number of smaller businesses forging their identity through Instagram photography or social interactivity, but to what extent can that replace websites, and will this cause a dramatic shift in the way we currently make our minds up about the companies we want to support and the way we shop as a whole?
