Facebook is testing a new Facebook Live feature that allows Pages to showcase products that users can buy with screenshots.
The new “Live Video Mode for Sellers,” is a great way for businesses to showcase their products live and “sell more efficiently.” As Pages showcase their products, viewers can message them live during broadcasts, with screenshots of the products they’d like to buy. Page admins can then request payment from their inbox.
The notice for the new feature explains that it is not available to everyone just yet, but that there is a waitlist Pages can join to try it. We currently don’t have a link for that yet, but you’ll probably just have to keep your eyes peeled.
The new feature probably isn’t really meant for big brands as I can’t see them selling products in this way, but it will be helpful for “Home Shopping Network” type Pages as SMT contributor Jeff Higgins explains.
Facebook is adding a live video mode for sellers. Viewers can message you during the broadcast with screenshots of the product and you can take payments from your inbox.
Facebook is essentially giving users their own live Home Shopping Network. pic.twitter.com/gQDuuJkqNr— Jeff Higgins (@ItsJeffHiggins) November 29, 2018
As to how the feature will work exactly, is anyone’s guess at this point, but it’s probable that making a screenshot of a product during a broadcast will be made easy with the addition of some built-in feature.
The “Live Video Mode for Sellers” feature is a further indication – after the launch of and further development of Marketplace – that Facebook wants to give its ordinary users more power to use its community to sell things. The one thing it still hasn’t been able to figure out, for some reason, is the way to make payments fully possible through its platform.
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