SHOPLINE's Facebook Post Sales feature allows merchants to apply SHOPLINE "comment keywords + quantity order" function to non-live-streaming posts on the Facebook page!
After the customer leaves a message in the post, the system will send the shopping cart link through Messenger by detecting the keywords set up by the merchants, so that the customer can directly complete the checkout.
This article will cover the following:
- Add new Facebook sale post
- Link Facebook post sales to Facebook page post
- Disconnecting Facebook post sales and Facebook page post
- Enable Facebook post sales
- Facebook Post sales comment management
- End or copy Facebook post sales
- Customer's view after making comments to Facebook post
1. Add a Facebook sale post
Step 1
Go to [SHOPLINE Admin] > [Social Commerce] > [Post Sales], then click the blue Add New Sale Post button.
Select "Facebook" and click Create.
Step 2
Enter the name for the Facebook post sales event. Click Confirm to complete.
*Note: This name is only for internal use.
Step 3
Select "Choose goods" or "Add Products" to add to your Facebook post sales.
A. Choose goods
Click the "Choose goods" button and a pop-up window will appear. On the upper right corner of the pop-up you can select what to display in the window:
- "All products" within the store
- Products that "Include Keywords" in the store (all products with set keywords from [Social Commerce] > [Product Keywords], for more information please refer to this article)
*Note:
- Hidden price products and unpublished products cannot be selected.
- You can select up to 500 products for sale in a single post sales at the same time.
In addition to selecting store products individually, you can also select products in bulk by category.
After the product selection is complete, enter the product keyword. You can choose to quickly apply system-generated keywords, or add keywords in bulk or individually.
After the setting is complete, click Save to successfully add the product.
B. Add Products
You can customize Product Image, Name, Keywords, Price, Quantity, and Product SKU. Once you have completed editing, click Continue to successfully add the products to the livestream.
- Click create new line to add new products.
- Use Quick Import to add multiple products.
Supports adding multiple variant products into the livestream
Besides Product Image, Product Name, Keywords, Price, Quantity, and Product SKU, you can also customize product variants by clicking Add variant to open the setup window.
*Note: You can add variants in the "Product Keywords" tab, yet quick import is currently not supported. To learn more about creating product keywords, please refer to this article.
The system presets two variations: color, and size. You can also customize the variation name.
Click Add product variation to add more variations. The system currently supports adding a maximum of two variations. Click the trash icon on the right to remove a variation.
*Note:
- If the price of each product variant is the same, after entering the price of any variant, click Bulk Sync Price to automatically sync all the prices.
- If one of the product variants has a set quantity, the other variants will also need to be set with a quantity.
Supports editing header
Click Edit header on the right of the "Create product" pop-up window to select whether to display the "Image", "Product SKU" and "Variant" fields.
Uncheck to not display a field.
Step 4
Products that have been added to the Facebook post sales will appear in the "Post Products and Keywords" list. Click Add Products to add/ select more products.
Click the icon on the right of the products to edit product keywords or remove them.
If you want to edit product keywords in bulk, click the Bulk edit button, select the products you want to edit, and then click Edit keywords.
Step 5
Scroll down to the "Settings" section to complete the relevant Facebook post sales settings.
1. Schedule
Set the start and end time for the Facebook post sale. If you want this post sales to take effect permanently, you can check "Never expire".
For example, if the start time is set to 15 April, 2022 14:00:00, and the end time is 16 April, 2022 10:00:00, the customer can only place an order successfully by leaving a message during this period.
Synchronize schedule according to the time the post sales is enabled/ends
Scenario 1:
If you set the schedule start time as 16 June, but you only enable the post sales on 22 June, the post sales scheduled start time will be displayed as 22 June.
Scenario 2:
If you set the schedule end time as 28 June, but you end the post sales early on 22 June, the end time of the post sales schedule will be displayed as 22 June.
Once the post sales end, a prompt will appear indicating "the stop time will be synchronized to the scheduled end time".
2. Commodity Order Rules
A. Keyword order rules: Click Edit to set the keyword ordering rules.
There are three order rule options:
- Comments containing keywords or keywords + quantity (e.g. I want A1 / Hello A1+1 / A1 / A1+1)
- Comments containing keywords + quantity. Entering keywords only is not valid. (e.g. I want A1+1, A1+1)
- Comments only consist of keywords or keywords + quantity. No other text is allowed. (e.g. A1, A1+1)
B. Reserve inventory: Switch the toggle on the right to turn on the reserve inventory function, and you need to set the time to reserve inventory.
When a customer places an order through a keyword, the product inventory will be automatically locked, and the product will be reserved for the customer until the specified time. For details on how to reserve inventory, please refer to this article.
3. Comments and Message Setting
A. Keyword Order Message Settings
Click Order message settings to edit the comments and message content.
a. Reply by private message
Switch on the "Reply by private message" toggle to edit the private message content. Customers will receive the message after leaving comments with keywords. Switch off the toggle and customers will no longer receive the message.
To apply parameters in a customized message, you can click the "Available Parameters" drop-down menu, and click the parameters to have them copied. Paste them in the message field to apply.
b. Reply by comment
Switch on the "Reply by comment" toggle to edit the comment content. Customers will be replied with this comment after leaving comments with keywords. Switch off the toggle and the system will no longer reply to customers's comment.
B. Auto-reply General Comment Settings
Apart from orders, customers might also leave comments without product keywords on a Facebook sale post. In this case, merchants can set up auto-reply by comment or by private message, both of which greatly reduce waiting time for customers. Let's see how to set it up.
Click Auto-reply Settings to customize the content of auto-reply by private message or comment for customers' general comments keywords.
Switch on the "Enable Auto-reply" toggle, and click Add auto-reply.
Create keyword phrases in the "Comment message matches" box. When customers' comments include all keywords in the keyword phrase(s), the system will send an auto-reply/ private message to them.
As shown in the image down below, you can add "when" & "arrive" as keywords for phrase A, and "how long" & "ship" as keywords for phrase B.
- If a customer comments: "When will my shipment arrive?", an auto-reply will be sent.
- If a customer comments: "How long will it take to ship?", an auto-reply will be sent.
- If a customer comments: "When", the auto-reply will not be sent.
- If a customer comments: "When will you ship my order", the auto-reply will not be sent.
*Note:
- Please switch on at least one reply method: "Reply by comment" and/ or "Reply by private message".
- General comment keywords should be different from product keywords or event keywords. Otherwise, the system will only respond to product and campaign keywords but not the general comment keywords.
- Keyword length cannot be less than 2 characters.
- The system is not case-sensitive.
- Spaces can be used in keywords (e.g. "how much"), while other special characters are not supported (e.g. ? , ! @ $ * ).
- Merchants can add at most 10 keywords to a keyword phrase; the system supports at most 10 keyword phrases.
Click the Save button to complete editing. There will be a pop-up reminder that shows "Added auto-reply successfully" at the top right.
Post sales support customizing auto-reply by comment/by private message. Merchants can choose to switch on the features and edit their content (600 characters at most). The image down below shows an example of auto-reply by comment/by private message when customers leave comments with general comment keywords on a Facebook post sales:
*Note: If customers' comments include product keywords and general comment keywords, the system will only send the keyword order message.
For example, say you've created a keyword order message for product "D1" and a general comment auto-reply for "how long", "ship", when:
- Customers comment "I want D1, how long does it take to ship?", the system will respond with the keyword order message;
- Customers comment "How long does it take to ship?", the system will respond with the general comment auto-reply.
*If a customer clicks the Checkout Now button in
Facebook Messenger, but the link does not open, while waiting for
Facebook to resolve the issue, SHOPLINE suggests you use the
"Shopping Cart Link" parameter in the Order Message Settings.
For more information, please refer to this article.
Supports editing general settings
You can preset post sales general settings for schedules, order rules, comments and private messages ...etc, and apply them when creating new post sales campaigns to save time and effort. For more information, please refer to this article.
2. Link Facebook post sales to Facebook page post
i. Created Facebook post
Step 1: Scroll up to the "Connect post" section and click Connect post. 
Step 2: Select a released or scheduled post on the Facebook page, then click Connect.
*Note:
- Facebook post sales do not support live-streaming posts.
- Due to the limitation of Facebook API, when you select a scheduled post, you can only link to the scheduled post published through Facebook's classic version publishing tool. You can access the tool by going to https://www.facebook.com/{page}/publishing_tools. (Please remember to replace the {page} with your Page ID)
Supports connecting to multiple posts
When connecting to a post, selecting multiple posts is supported. Customers can place orders by commenting keywords under all linked posts, and you can view a sales overview for all posts.
*Note:
- Once successfully connected, you can still connect to a maximum of 20 posts.
- The number of linked posts will be displayed in the Sales Events list.
ii. Uncreated Facebook Post
Step 1: In the Connect post section, click the Create Post button.
Step 2: Select the Facebook Page on which you would like to post, and enter the post content.
*Note: When creating a post, if you decide to switch to another Facebook Page, the created content and images will be cleared.
Step 3: Provides multiple quick inputs for you to create your post quickly.
- Product information: You can choose to input the information of all the products sold in this post sale, or select one of them to input, and click Confirm after the selection is complete.
- Order rules: Click to input the order rules you have set.
- Custom content:
1. Click Create to enter the title and content.
2. Click on the custom content you have just created to input the content into the post. In the future, you can just click to apply directly, making it easier to create posts.
Step 4: Click Add image to add images to the post.
*Note: Currently supports up to 20 images, the format is required to be JPEG, PNG, and not exceed 4 MB.
During the editing process, you can preview on the right.
*Note: If there are more than 4 pictures in the post, the right preview screen will not display the images after the 4th one. Enlarging the images is not supported in the preview area.
Step 5: Once set up is complete, click the Create button on the bottom right to successfully create the post.
The Facebook Page post will automatically link with the Post Sales.
Successfully linked with Facebook post
Once the Facebook post is successfully linked, click the icon on the right to view the original post, preview post, create a new post or connect to another existing post.
*Note: If you have already enabled the post sales, connecting to a new post is supported but you cannot disconnect the post.
If you wish to adjust the Facebook post, you can also click the Preview icon and click Edit post.
Editing post content and images are supported, but not switching Facebook Pages.
*Note:
- If this post only contains 1 image, then adding and deleting an image will not be supported.
- If this post contains multiple images, please do not delete all images, it is suggested you keep at least 2 images to make sure the post can be edited normally in the future.
3. Disconnecting Facebook post sales and Facebook page post
If you have not enabled the post sales, in the "Connect post" section, click the "..." icon to disconnect from the Facebook page post. You can still reconnect after the disconnection.
*Note: You cannot disconnect the post once the post sales event is enabled.
*Note: If this post sales ends, the end time will be shown. Also, this Facebook post can still connect with other post sales.
4. Enable Facebook post sales
Click the Enable button at the top right of the page.
*Please double-check:
- The status of the linked Facebook post is published or scheduled (If it is a scheduled post, make sure that the Facebook post sales schedule corresponds to the Facebook post schedule time so that customers can place orders successfully when the post is published).
- The content of the Facebook post contains the description of product keywords. This can ensure that customers can view and place an order successfully.
When this window appears, it means that the post for sale has been successfully created and the status will be updated to "Open".
5. Facebook post sales comment management
Click the "Message Management" icon on the left side of the page to view customer comments and sales performance.
A. Sales Overview
In the "Sales Overview" section, you can view the "Total Comment(s)", "Orders(s)", "Total Order Amount", "Unpaid" and "Unpaid Amount".
B. Comment Management
In the "Comment Management" section, you can view all the comments, keyword order product(s), their current cart product(s), and created order(s).
*Note: If the customer left a comment after the post sales has ended, then this comment will not display in the Comment Management section.
You can also filter out comments through the fields above.
On the right side of each comment, there are three feature buttons:
- Instant Chat: Send a message through FB Messenger to the customer
*Note: According to Facebook's policy, if the customer does not interact with you through Facebook in the past 24 hours, you will not be able to message them again. - Edit Cart: Edit the products in the customer's cart
- Create Order: Directly create an order for the customer
6. Copy, end or remove Facebook post sales
Click the drop-down menu next to the Enter button to select to copy, end or delete the post sales.
Bulk copy/ remove Facebook post sales
Check the boxes to the left of the Facebook post sales (check the box on the top to select all), then click Copy or Delete to execute the action in bulk.
*Note:
- If you remove a post sales that is still "Open", customers will still be able to place keyword orders by commenting on the post.
- When you remove a post sale, a pop-up window will ask you to double confirm before proceeding.
- The copied post will show on the top of the post sales list.
- When you copy a post sales, the system will only copy the name, product, keyword, order placement rules, comment, and message setup, and scheduled time of the post sale. The Facebook link will not be included, so you will need to relink the Facebook post.
7. Customer's view after making comments to Facebook post
Customers place an order by leaving comments consisting of keyword + quantity to the Facebook post.
Customers will also receive a Messenger message and can hit the Continue button to checkout.
Read more
- SHOPLINE Live｜Livestream shopping with Facebook Live
- SHOPLINE Live | Performance Dashboard & Comment Management
- SHOPLINE Live｜Comments Management
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