Meta announced today that it will stop onboarding new no-checkout stores on Facebook and Instagram. From April 24 of next year, stores without checkout on Facebook and Instagram will no longer be accessible. This means that stores that direct people to an e-commerce site to make a purchase, rather than letting people make a purchase directly through Facebook or Instagram, will no longer be accessible.
“In the US, we will focus on helping businesses add checkout to their store,” the company wrote in a blog post. “To ease the transition, we will continue to support stores that link to a website until April 24, 2024. In selected markets where we see a future opportunity to introduce checkout, we will continue to support stores that link to a website to earn money. make the transition as easy as possible. All other markets will no longer be able to host a store on their Facebook or Instagram page or use product tags in posts starting August 10, 2023.”
Businesses in 21 international markets will be able to use Facebook and Instagram stores without checkout until further notice, Meta says. These markets include: Australia, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Netherlands, Norway, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, United Kingdom and Ukraine.
As of June 5, onboarding new stores through Commerce Manager and Shopify is only possible if checkout is enabled on Facebook and Instagram. Starting August 10, new store onboarding through all other partners will only be possible if checkout is enabled on Facebook and Instagram.
Meta notes that businesses without checkout-enabled stores will no longer be able to use features associated with stores, including tagging organic products in posts and creating new custom/lookalike audiences derived from people who have visited a store.
“As of August 10, 2023, some businesses without checkout-enabled Shops on Facebook and Instagram will no longer be able to tag their products through the Content Publishing API,” the company wrote in a blog post. “This impacts both the API and native interfaces and removes product tags from previous posts. In some markets, the deprecation will be effective August 10, 2023. After this date, some users will receive an error when they try to tag an ineligible product, and the affected product tags on previous posts will not be returned by the API endpoint.”
Separately, Meta announced that if your Facebook Page hasn’t been updated to the new Pages experience by June 5, 2023, it will automatically update. The company says this update won’t support some legacy features, such as the ability to manage and post a catalog or product detail page from a Facebook page, but notes that businesses will still be able to post links to their website.
Facebook and Instagram first introduced Shops in 2020 as a way for users to purchase products from a business page. The company frames the new change as part of its effort to build a “seamless shopping experience” for people that also helps businesses grow.
The change indicates that Meta is doubling down on its checkout experience and focusing on being the sole checkout provider for Shops on Instagram and Facebook.