Facebook is diving full-force into shopping by Jillian D'Onfro on Oct 12, 2015, 11:00 AM Advertisement
 Facebook wants to help you make your next impulse buy. The company is diving full-force into ecommerce, with a handful of ad products and features meant to ramp up its shopping efforts. In a blog post Monday morning, the company highlighted several of its existing and experimental efforts, including a new way to browse products that it's calling "Canvas," plus an expanded "Shop" section. Facebook's last major attempt at winning ecommerce in 2011/2012 flopped, in part because people didn't want to mix shopping with social. A popular analogy at the time was that it felt like Facebook was trying to sell you stuff while you were hanging out at a bar with your friends. The company suggests that that mindset is no more, though, referencing a survey that shows that "nearly half of people come to Facebook to actively look for products." Making it easier to buy and sell things on Facebook with your smartphone "The core message underlying all of our early tests is that we're looking to make it easier for people to discover relevant products, while helping businesses drive sales on mobile," Emma Rodgers, who leads Facebook's product marketing efforts, told Business Insider. As more people spend time on their smartphones versus desktop computers, they spend more than 85% of their smartphone time on apps, with each person only dedicating heavy usage to about five of them, including Facebook and Instagram. Because of that shift, and because retailers' mobile sites are often pretty wonky, Facebook wants them to use its Canvas platform to list more of their products. If users click on a company's product ad, they'll open up a super fast-loading catalog of other items they can buy. It's like Facebook's Instant Articles, but for shopping ads. 
Although Canvas directs users to make purchases off-site, the company also continues to test a proper "Buy button" that lets them make their purchase directly on Facebook. The other update Facebook talked about is its revamped Pages with Shop sections and plans to create a new "Shopping" section that will curate different relevant products in one place. The items that appear will be based on which Pages the users have liked, as well as content being sold in Facebook Groups that they're part of. 
SEE ALSO: Facebook's last push into ecommerce was a disaster, but it's gearing up to try again
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