Facebook is accelerating its push into eCommerce as the coronavirus pandemic upends shopping habits across the world.
The company on Thursday (Sept. 17) unveiled plans for a new app aimed at helping small businesses that rely on the social media giant to hawk their wares and services to operate more efficiently online.
In a blog post, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg announced the rollout of Facebook Business Suite.
The new app will provide small businesses to more easily manage their Facebook, Messenger and Instagram pages, Sandberg wrote.
Through the new app, business owners can field and reply to messages from customers and others through a single, unified, inbox covering their Facebook, Messenger and Instagram accounts.
Small businesses can also use the app to post content on Facebook and Instagram at the same time, while also being able to zoom in more quickly on what’s working and what’s not through the use of “Facebook and Instagram insights,” according to Sandberg.
“Today we’re introducing Facebook Business Suite, a new interface to help businesses save time and stay up to date by managing their pages or profiles across our apps,” Sandberg wrote.
Facebook is targeting its rollout of its new Facebook Business Suite at small businesses, with plans to offer the service to larger businesses in 2021.
Facebook also plans at some point to add WhatsApp to the service as well, The Verge reports.
In addition, Facebook has released a pair of new surveys on small businesses around the world and the impact COVID-19 on their operations.
Facebook’s latest installment of its monthly Global State of Small Business Report finds that small businesses that generate more than a quarter of their sales online have been more likely to see an increase in revenue this year, Sandberg noted in her blog post.
The second report, a survey on the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on consumers conducted with Deloitte, found just about half have upped their online spending since the outbreak began.
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