Selling directly through social platforms is attractive for small brands, but the shopping features come with eligibility requirements that many beginners overlook. Read the current rules first, because they differ by country and change over time.
What the shopping features are
Facebook Shops and Instagram Shopping let a business display a catalogue of products, tag items in posts and stories, and in some regions let customers check out inside the app. In other regions, customers are sent to your website to complete the purchase.
Typical requirements
- A business account and a connected Page. Personal profiles cannot run a shop.
- Commerce eligibility. The platform reviews your business, and your account must comply with its commerce policies and merchant agreement.
- A website or supported checkout. Your domain usually needs to be verified.
- Allowed products and honest descriptions. Many categories are restricted or prohibited, and listings need accurate images, prices and availability.
- Return and refund information shown to customers.
Preparing your catalogue
- Export clean product data: unique IDs, titles, descriptions, price, availability, image links and product URLs.
- Use clear photos on simple backgrounds that do not contain heavy text overlays.
- Keep prices and stock in sync with your website; mismatches are a common cause of rejected items.
- Monitor the diagnostics tab for errors and warnings.
Common reasons for rejection
Prohibited items, missing policy pages, incorrect brand claims, misleading prices, or landing pages that do not match the product. If something is rejected, fix the underlying issue before requesting a review, rather than resubmitting repeatedly.
Build a safe workflow
Assign at least two admins, enable two-factor authentication and keep a record of documents used for business verification. For more social media and account resources, the Facebook520 tool directory and the cross-border headlines pages are good places to continue.
Published by Facebook520 Cross-Border Navigation.