Social Buy Button and ConnectaStore

Adding individual products or your entire product range to your existing website is very straightforward, whichever CMS you're using. It works just as well with a Jimdo website builder as with a more complex CMS like Joomla!.

Simply select the relevant product and the “Buy Now” Button in the menu.

You can then edit the design settings, and a HTML snippet will be automatically generated. You just need to copy and paste it into your website builder or CMS and you're done.

Integrating an entire store is just as easy. Simply select "Websites" as the sales channel and enter the HTML snippet. You only need to do that once and your products shop and design will automatically be updated.

The Social Buy Button and ConnectaStore can easily be added to the social media profiles that your business has. This includes four channels: Facebook, Facebook Messenger, Instagram, and Pinterest. With the button, customers can buy directly instead of following a long route to the shopping cart, which may cause you to lose some potential buyers along the way. Note that you need a business account for all four channels in order for the social media shopping cart integration to work. You must also accept the sales processes and policy of the social media platforms.

Here’s how to integrate the Social Buy Button or ConnectaStore for each channel:

Facebook: Your business must have a Facebook page and you must be the admin of it. After selecting the Facebook business page where you want to sell your products, click on “Save” and accept the Facebook Merchant Commerce terms and conditions. Facebook will have to review and accept your store before selling and advertising is possible. All enabled products will then be synced to a new Facebook tab and will appear in your shop as soon as the setup process is complete.

Facebook Messenger: Adding Messenger to your online store makes it easier for customers to contact you. They can simply click on the “Message Us” button and write their query in the chat. To enable Messenger for your shop, click on “Connect Facebook Page”, choose the business page from which you want to contact customers, then click “Next”. Allow the requested permissions and click “Done”. Click “Save” to connect the selected Facebook page, enter the shop’s URL and click “Save” once again. The “Message Us” button will now appear on every page of your online store.

Instagram: Since Instagram is part of the Facebook group, you first need to set up a Facebook shop before you can proceed. You also need to convert your store’s Instagram account into a business profile in order to sell. Once approved, you can enable the product-tagging feature on Instagram. In “Settings”, click on “Shopping” to confirm your Facebook account, then select the product catalogue you want to connect to your business profile, then click on “Done”. Once your account is approved by the Instagram team, you simply need to turn on the product-tagging feature. Then you can start tagging products in your stories and images.

Pinterest: First, you need a Pinterest business account. You can either convert your personal account to a business one, or you can add a business account to your personal profile and switch between the two. Pinterest doesn’t enable button integration as such, but you can track visitors’ behaviour with the Pinterest Tag. You need to ‘claim’ your website on Pinterest in order to track which images or products are shared from your website. In the “Settings” section, enter your website’s URL and click “Claim”. Then select “Add HTML tag”, which you should copy, then click on “Next”. Open a new tab in your browser and go to the shop dashboard section. This code should then be added in the SEO settings and then simply click “Add Code” in the “Header meta tags and site verification” section. Paste the meta tag into this field and click to save. Return to the Pinterest browser tab and click “Submit”. Within the next 24 hours, you should receive an email confirming that your website has successfully been claimed.

The vast majority of product categories are suitable for selling with social media shopping carts. How popular your products will be, however, is a different matter. The best-selling categories on social media are electronics, beauty, films, music, retails, travel, and hotels, but sometimes products that are a little out of the ordinary catch shoppers’ attention most. According to several trend analyses, interest for niche products such as pet beds and minimalistic jewellery is on the rise in 2020. You can see an example of selling this kind of product with the Social Buy Button here.

Trending products can help to increase your sales so you could consider selling what people are looking for, or simply add these sought-after products to your already existing product range if it makes sense to do so. Alternatively, you may decide to steer away from the crowd and do your own thing in order to stand out.

The payment process depends on which payment solution or provider you choose. When a customer purchases through the Social Buy Button or ConnectaStore, the transactions are processed by third-party payment providers e.g. PayPal. The funds are paid into the account that you have with this payment provider, which you can then withdraw at any time.

Customers can also pay using offline payment methods e.g. cash on delivery, bank transfer, phone order. To do this, they should pay you outside of the store using the payment instructions you’ve provided them with either at checkout or after the order has been placed (for example, by email or in a phone conversation).