Meta is announced that it will begin transitioning all Facebook and Instagram Shops back to external website checkout starting June 2025, as opposed to forcing users to checkout within the apps — which is how the Shops program originally started back in 2020.
The company wrote in a help post:
“Starting in June 2025, Shops will gradually begin using website checkout instead of checkout on Facebook or Instagram. While customers will discover new products on Facebook and Instagram, they’ll now be directed to your own website for checkout. This will give you more control of the checkout experience and reduce the time it takes to set up and maintain your shop.”
The change won't be made to all shops at once, but Meta says that most shops should be updated by the end of August 2025.
Here's a brief history of Meta's relationship with Shops:
- May 2020: Meta (then Facebook) launched Facebook and Instagram Shops. Initially checkout was flexible and US merchants had the option of either linking out to their own websites for checkout or using Meta's native checkout experience.
- 2021: Meta began pushing for native checkout, providing incentives for merchants such as free transaction processing for a limited time. However on-site checkout remained an option for merchants.
- 2022: Meta started expanding Shops availability to more countries. U.S. merchants were still encouraged to use in-app checkout, which more began to adopt, but the majority of international merchants still used website checkout because native checkout wasn't yet supported globally.
- 2023: Meta announced that merchants would be required to use Meta's native checkout starting in April 2024 and that merchants would no longer be allowed to direct customers off-platform for checkout. However international merchants were still allowed to use website checkout in most markets due to lack of availability of in-app checkout.
- 2024-2025: Native checkout was required for U.S. Shops with product listings on Instagram/Facebook, with website checkout no longer an option. Many brands opted to run shoppable posts without a full Shop, which still allowed outbound links in certain ad formats or organic posts. International markets remained mixed, with some offering native checkout and others not.
I've never seen a company botch social commerce more than Meta, and they've had every opportunity in the world to lead the path. They've repeatedly made the same mistake with their affiliate programs, live shopping features, and their internal shops: trying to own the entire transaction.
Rather than simply giving creators and merchants great tools to run their businesses, Meta has been obsessed with controlling the entire experience to maximize its benefit, which has been to the company's detriment, as none of their efforts have successfully panned out.
Back in August 2022, I wrote:
“Is Meta trying to be TikTok, Snapchat, or Tinder now-a-days? Are they best friends with Shopify or competitors? Are they a social network, content discovery platform, or e-commerce marketplace?”
Today I can pose a new question:
“Is Meta trying to be Google Shopping, OpenAI, or Perplexity now-a-days? Or all the above?”
Without a doubt, Meta is making this move in preparation to launch their own agentic AI shopping tool to compete against the companies above. Monkey see, monkey do.
The move is also likely linked to Meta's ongoing battle with the European Commission over its monopolistic practices, and I'd imagine that removing onsite checkout from the equation and driving traffic back to merchants' websites and partner marketplaces will help ease some of the EU's concerns.
In the meantime, yet another swing and a miss for Meta's e-commerce ambitions.