As of April 2023, Meta has made changes to the availability of Shops on Facebook and Instagram for merchants operating in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA). For a list of EMEA countries where Shops are available, please refer to the EMEA: Changes to Shops article on the Meta Business Help Center. 

You can create a catalogue and connect your eCom products to Facebook to improve sales by offering your products on your Facebook Business page. Below, you will find the instructions for accomplishing that.

Mandatory steps

1. Verifying product prerequisites

Before products can be published on Facebook, they need to meet the following requirements:

• Title (150 character limit)
• Description (256 character limit)
• Price (it must be higher than $0)
• Image (JPG, GIF or PNG format, at least 500 x 500 pixels)
• Brand (must be visible in your eCom back office)

Note: Products that are hidden in the back office will not be included in the feed.

2. Creating a Facebook catalogue

Next, you will need to create a catalogue in your Facebook Business Manager.

Note: If you do not have a Facebook Business page, you will need to create one first so you can have your Business Manager.

To create your catalogue:

1. Log into your Facebook Business Manager.
2. Select the three horizontal lines at the top left corner in the menu on the left.
3. Select Commerce Manager.

   

4. If it's your first catalogue, select Get Started, then select Create a Catalog.
   If you are adding another catalogue, select Add Catalog in the Catalogs section.
5. Choose the type of items to sell and select Next.
6. Select Upload Product Info.
7. Select the Business Manager account to which your catalogue belongs. To select a Business Manager account, you must be a business admin.
8. Enter a name for your catalogue.
9. Select Create.
   

   

Note: If you have an existing catalogue, we strongly recommend starting with a new one.

3. Getting the product data feed

Data feeds are URLs that will ensure communication between eCom and Facebook. In your back office, you can find two product data feeds formatted for Facebook: a standard one for when you have a Facebook Pixel connected; and a variant one to be used if you don't have Facebook Pixel. To get the product data feed:

Standard feed (when using a Pixel):

1. In your back office, select Settings.
2. Select Feeds.
3. Select Go To Custom Feeds.
4. Copy the URL for Facebook Catalog - Main Product IDs.

Variant Feed (for most shops):

1. In your back office, select Settings.
2. Select Feeds.
3. Select Go To Custom Feeds.
4. Copy the URL for Facebook Catalog - Variant.
   

Note: The variant feed is paginated at 500 items per feed URL. You may need to add multiple URLs to ensure all your products are included. To do this, add the following to the end of the default URL, increasing the page number accordingly until the inventory item count is met:

/?google=true&include_variants=true&page=1
/?google=true&include_variants=true&page=2
/?google=true&include_variants=true&page=3

4. Uploading the product feed

Now that you already have a new catalogue, you will need to upload the product data feed with the URL you copied in the previous step:

1. Under Commerce Manager, select your catalogue.
2. Open the Catalog tab.
3. Select Data Sources.
   

   

4. Select Add Items at the top right corner.
5. Select Data Feed, then select Next.
6. Select Scheduled feed to set up an hourly schedule.
7. Enter the URL and select Next.
8. Enter a name for your scheduled feed.
9. Select a default currency. This needs to be the same as the default currency in your eCom back office.
10. Select Upload or Next.

5. Correcting errors

If any errors are generated, you can find a list of them in your Facebook Business Manager:

1. Go to Commerce Manager.
2. In the Catalogs section, select your catalogue.
3. From the Catalog tab on the left, select Issues.

Yellow warnings are suggestive and can be ignored. Red are errors that prevent products from publishing and are addressed below: 

After you have resolved the errors, you can select Upload Now and then Request Update Now.

Optional step

Note: This is an additional step, provided as-is. Our support team is unable to assist further.

Creating a custom feed

You can quickly add any missing product information with an eCom product import. However, you can also create custom feeds to automatically:

• Replace short descriptions with the product title.
• Replace brands with the shop name.
• Indicate if a product doesn't have an SKU or EAN.

In your back office:

1. Go to Settings.
2. From the Website Settings column, select Feeds.
3. Select Go to Custom Feeds at the bottom right.
4. Select Add feed.
5. Enter a name that you can easily recognize, such as Facebook Custom Feed.
6. Create a copy of the desired feed, in this case, it will be either Facebook Catalog - Main Product IDs or Facebook Catalog - Variant IDs.
7. Select Save.

You will be taken to a page with the original feed's code. Now you can modify this by adding any missing information.

To replace short descriptions with the product title:

1. Locate the code line below:
   

   <description>{{ product.description | cdata }}</description>

2. Highlight it and delete it.
3. Copy the following code piece:
   

   {% if product.description %}
   
   <description>{{ product.description | cdata }}</description>
   
   {% else %}
   
   <description>{{ product.fulltitle | cdata }}</description>
   
   {% endif %}

4. Paste it where the previous one was.
5. Select Save.

To replace brands with the shop name:

1. Locate the code lines below:
   

   {% if product.brand %}
   
   <g:brand>{{ product.brand.title | cdata }}</g:brand>
   
   {% endif %}

2. Highlight them and delete them.
3. Copy the following code piece:
   

   {% if product.brand %}
   
   <g:brand>{{ product.brand.title | cdata }}</g:brand>
   
   {% else %} 
   
   <g:brand>{{ shop.title | cdata }}</g:brand>
   
   {% endif %}

4. Paste it where the previous one was.
5. Select Save.

To indicate if a product doesn't have an SKU or EAN:

1. Locate the code lines below:
   

   <g:gtin>{{ product.ean | cdata }}</g:gtin>
   
   <g:mpn>{{ product.code | cdata }}</g:mpn>

2. Highlight them and delete them.
3. Copy the following code piece:
   

   {% if product.ean or product.mpn %}
    	{% if product.ean %}
   		<g:gtin>{{ product.ean | cdata }}</g:gtin>
   	{% endif %}
   	{% if product.code %}
   		<g:mpn>{{ product.code }} </g:mpn>
   	{% endif %}
   {% else %}
   		<g:identifier_exists>no</g:identifier_exists>
   {% endif %}

4. Paste it where the previous one was.
5. Select Save.

After you have modified the feed, you can use the new URL to load it into Facebook:

1. Select View feed.
2. Copy the URL of the page that will open.
3. Follow the instructions for mandatory step number 3 to Create a Facebook catalogue.

Note: if you already have a catalogue and simply decide to use a different URL, such as a Custom Feed, you don't have to go through all the steps again. If that's the case:

1. Go to Commerce Manager.
2. In the Catalogs section, select Data Sources.
3. Select your catalogue under the Name column.
4. Select Settings at the top of the page.
5. In the Schedules section, select the button with three dots.
6. Select Edit.
7. Enter your new feed URL.
8. Select Save.
9. Select Request Update Now.

FAQs

1. Why aren't all my products displayed on my Facebook or Instagram shop?

Check if your products have been approved. As mandatory step 4 of this article explains, Facebook may reject products due to a few different reasons, such as:

• • There might be missing product information.
  • They don't comply with Facebook guidelines (for example, the sale of alcohol).

Make sure products are visible in eCom: products that are not visible in your webshop will not be visible on your Facebook or Instagram either. After adjusting products visibility in Lightspeed, sometimes it may take a little while before they show up on Facebook or Instagram as well.

2. How do I tag my products?

See the step-by-step on Facebook's help centre for Tagging products on Facebook.

Next steps

Learn how to connect your Facebook catalogue to your business Instagram account and sell via Instagram as well.