Grow Your Merch Sales with Meta and Spreadshop

Original Blog Post: Grow Your Merch Sales with Meta and Spreadshop - The Spreadshop Blog


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It’s easier than ever to sell merch on Facebook and Instagram thanks to Spreadshop’s new Meta Business Integration. What was once a painful and confusing process for shop owners can now be done in a matter of seconds!

People around the world will be able to access your Spreadshop from your Facebook page, Instagram profile or from one of your Instagram stories. This extension is going to open many new opportunities for your shop.

Next Level Social Selling

Easily run shop ads across Facebook and Instagram with just a few clicks. With the power of Meta’s Pixel, you can find more people likely to buy from your Spreadshop. End the search for your target audience once and for all. You’ll be able to measure marketing and ads performance and get insights on how Meta’s business tools help drive traffic and sales. This is going to take your merch marketing to the next level.

Simple Setup

In the past, connecting Facebook Business Manager and Facebook Commerce was a complicated process. Meta has made it much simpler. Customizing your Facebook shop and collections takes only a few minutes. You’ll be able to add collections, descriptions and cover media. Anyone who visits your shop on Facebook or Instagram will have the ability to click on them and buy the products directly from your Spreadshop.

Build Your Brand

Selling your merch on socials is the future of e-commerce. Beyond the fact that your friends, family and followers are already on platforms like Facebook and Instagram, this is a FREE opportunity to reach new customers and expand your brand. Your products and designs can now be discovered and purchased by new customers seamlessly across Facebook and Instagram. They can explore products and collections of products right from within the app.

What can Meta do for your shop?

Here are a few ideas to highlight how you can use the Meta Business Integration with Spreadshop:

  • Facebook Groups: Do you run or are you a member of a busy Facebook group? Do a merch drop of a special shirt to help raise money for your group’s effort/cause. Exclusive merch can really unify your group and build a bond with other members.
  • Instagram Merch Drop: Our data shows that creators sell more with limited merch drops. Launch an exclusive t-shirt design. Post a photo of you wearing it and tag the item for sale in the post. Don’t forget to tell your followers this is a limited time offer!
  • Find Your Fans: For as little as a dollar a day you can run targeted ads (link blog) and boosted posts. Find new customers who are more likely to buy from your Spreadshop and follow your brand.

Here’s how to get started in your Spreadshop user dashboard:

  1. Click HERE to go to your dashboard setup.
  2. You’ll be asked to login with your Facebook username and password. (must be a business account admin).
  3. Then, follow the step-by-step instructions to fully onboard your Spreadshop and unlock the power of Meta’s Business tools.

Need help? Check out our resource page here.

Hello, I tried multiple times, but I always get an “Unexpected error” after completing the procedure. Any ideas?

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Thanks for reporting! What browser are you using?

I’m using Chrome. I’ve already disabled any privacy or ad extensions. I see that my Spreadshop feed is being correctly uploaded (manually) on my Meta business catalogue page, but it’s getting errors (I still can’t figure out what exactly).

I hoped this new feature would make this process easier, but it simply doesn’t work at the moment.

Hi @Wages_of_sin

I’m looking in to this issue for you - We’ve not encountered this error in any of our testing prior to release, and I’ve not been able to reproduce iwhilst trying in the last hour. So we will have to do a bit of diagnoses work together, if that’s ok.

If it’s translated correctly, it points to something related to your product feed, so the first thing I would ask is if you can please delete your existing manual feed.

You can do that in Commerce Manager>Catalogs>Data Sources>Settings> Click the … to expand the menu and then select Delete

Then try to connect via Business Manager again via your Shop settings

Hello, the “Unexpected error” appears in my Spreadshop settings, under Marketing => Facebook and Instagram. Not in Facebook business.

Hi - sorry, changed to my work account.

Yes, I know where you see the error. The error is delivered to us from Meta though, so I’m trying to understand if there is an issue with the feed itself.

If you can delete it on the Meta Commerce side, then try the connection from your Spreadshop settings again, I would like to see if it works when there is no existing feed in Meta Commerce.

Deleting the feed schedule doesn’t change anything. I verified now.

I also tried deleting the Spreadshop “linked app” from Meta Business settings. When I try to link my Spreadshop to Meta from my Spreadshop page, it results linked again from Meta Business settings, but I still get the “unexpected error” from my Spreadshop settings page. Should I see something in Spreadshop Facebook settings page, instead of the error?

If all steps are succesfull you will see the connection success for each element. See screen shot below. There is nothing else you could see/add in your Spreadshop settings

If one peiece of the process fails, we display the error for you, as you’re currently getting.

Currently I’m not able to reproduce, trying on multiple different shops/FB accounts.

Do you have a second Facebook account you could try to connect to as a test? this would be my next test. We need to see if it’s related to your Spreadshop or feed, or the Meta Business configuration. Try connecting to a different Facebook account will help narow it down.

Can you also provide me with your Shop ID

My shop ID is 100314372

I don’t have another facebook account, and I assume that even if I created a fresh one, I would also have to create a new page to link my shop to, enter my commercial info, etc. Is this really feasible?

Hello, I managed to make it work. I completely deleted the catalogue from Meta Business, and the link from Spreadshop settings now works correctly.

Now I have to set my Meta shop again, but I hope it works well this time.

That’s great news you got it working, please let me know if you experience any further issues.

In answer to your earlier question about setting up new pages etc

Is this really feasible?

Yes! With the new business manager connection, if you don’t have any pages, commerce account, pixel, shop etc with Meta, you can set it all up through the connection wizard, and it’s all done in a matter of minutes. It’s one of the main reasons why we’ve moved to this new integration, it makes life much easier for shop owners.

Having been through the old manual set up process myself hundreds of times, I’m very familar with the frustrations, so we hope with our new connection we can reduce a lot of the frustrations. We will improve and add features to it over the coming months.

Please accept my appologies you experienced issues, but I glad to hear it’s workign for you now.

@SyeSpreadshop

I also ran into a problem.

I already had a working Facebook shop connected to Spreadshirt with the data feed.

If the connection between Spreadshirt and Facebook works do i still have to use the data feed?

Hi @realvintagetshirts

Sorry for delay.

If you already have a working feed in place, domain verified and pixel in place, you do not need to re-connect with the business manager. However, if you do make the connection, the existing details will stay in place and work as they do now. Nothing in place will be over written.

We will introduce new features in the coming months which will only be available if you make the connection via the business manager, but again, nothing anyoone currently has in place will be over written.

@SyeSpreadshop

Okay I understand. Thank you.

But that leads me to the problem. The data feed doesn’t transport sizes anymore.

Or just one size… is that a normal behavior now ?

@realvintagetshirts

Correct, we only send one size via the feeds. We send a product image, colour variants and one size via the feed. Users have the option to select the desired size once they land on your product page to complete their purchase.

We do this to keep the data feed to a managable size.

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@SyeSpreadshop

Okay, thanks for clarification.

@Britta_Spreadshop

I think you should know that too… I’m sure this question will come again at one point

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