From the Feb MF RB recommendation:
WHY BUY - Fast-growing, a preferred platform for Amazon.com, Facebook…
Merchants can set up a custom storefront whether they’re on a standalone website, or selling through Amazon’s Marketplace, or eBay. But they can also post a “buy” button pretty much anywhere they want on social media — whether it’s a blog, Facebook, Twitter…
The experience has been similar with Facebook: The “Buy” button that the social network started rolling out in July is actually the product of a development partnership with Shopify, which provides all the back-end power behind the simple interface. If you want to sell directly on Facebook, at least for now, you’ll need a Shopify account…
And while its deal with Facebook appears to be exclusive for the time being, it’s not clear that this is part of the agreement — Facebook may eventually expand its shops to other platforms.
From the April Acquisition of Kit:
Founded in 2013, Kit acts as a virtual marketing assistant that helps manage a small businesses’ marketing tasks so that entrepreneurs can focus on other aspects of their business. Kit allows businesses to run targeted ads on Facebook and Instagram, post updates to their Facebook Page, make recommendations based on store activities, and more, all via text messages.
From the May quarterly earnings:
Mobile is bringing commerce to places it’s never been before. With our recent integration with Facebook’s new Messenger platform and our acquisition of a leader in mobile messaging for commerce, Kit CRM, we’re making it easier for our merchants to thrive in this new era…
Shopify was the first commerce platform to integrate with Facebook’s new Messenger Platform, making it easier for merchants to engage in conversational commerce with their customers. The integration allows merchants to provide live customer support, automatically send order confirmations, shipping updates, and push notifications all within Facebook Messenger.
etc, etc.
I wouldn’t worry. I suspect it’s all good and FB isn’t going to go out and try to reinvent the wheel when they are already integrated with the best wheel manufacturer.
JMO
Saul