New online ordering platform emerges from stealth

Facebook recently announced “Facebook Shops”. It’s an attempt (again) to do e-commerce for their masses. They’ve been trying since 2012 to pull it off, but now the COVID crisis and the use of 3rd party platforms are making it more of a reality.

Oh, Facebook, when are you going to learn to stay in your lane..

Under the hood, Facebook Shops are just Shopify / BigCommerce or Woo stores with the Facebook emblem on it. The 3rd party stores that are powering Facebook Shops are doing the real work, and unfortunately, it’s the same ole’ goo that all of those platforms suffer from - only with a twist. Facebook now gets to see your customer's shopping and buying data/habits more in-depth and advertise to them while they browse other shops.

While Facebook Shops are free to create, they will create significant new business opportunities for Facebook in advertising, payments, and other services. Businesses will be able to buy ads for their Shops (pay to be at the top of a search), and when people use Facebook’s checkout option, it charges them a fee. So free, really isn't free, especially when you factor in exposing your customer base to Facebook and other 3rd parties.

And if you think your SEO is going to increase on the web, think again. Facebook won't compete with Google searches, so anything you put in a Facebook Shop will only be crawled by Facebook. In that manner, they can control who is at the top for what searches, and allow the feast for the influencer and advertising markets to run wild.

In a recent study, Klear, an influencer marketing platform, analyzed influencer rates across the main social platforms. Instagram influencer rates range from $41 – $3,138, depending on influencer type. The average micro-influencer charges $318 for a Facebook post, $172 for an Instagram Post, and $72 for an Instagram Story. The new Facebook shopping integration will further help the bottom line of influencers who mention your product through Facebook advertising.

In the Facebook news release, they say, “the shops, which will be powered by third-party services, including Shopify, BigCommerce, and Woo,.” The last thing anyone wants is to let Facebook capture their logins, shopping habits, buying history from other places, then use it for their own purposes.

It's the same problem that has haunted Etsy, Amazon, and others today. If someone is on my Facebook Shop where I sell hats, I wouldn't want them to see advertisements from other hat vendors too. Even if they don't see competitor ads at that moment, they will see them in the future because of Facebook's rigorous user tracking.

When you also factor in being censored on what you can sell and how you even describe your products, it suddenly looks like the same ole big-brother atmosphere. Much like the mobile app market, you can be shut down without any way to fight it.

There is a growing mass of people that are stepping away from Facebook because of their known censorship, profile spying tactics, and data sharing with 3rd parties. The risk of damaging your business brand because of a Facebook data breach is real too. Just last year, 540 million Facebook user's data was stolen, and there are many cases before that, and there are many more to come.

New online ordering solution that's really turn-key

In more recent news, MarketByte - the website platform that manages your entire digital presence online, has emerged from stealth to bring a viable online ordering platform to the market, simply called "MarketByte Online Ordering".

The MarketByte Online Ordering solution allows anyone to create their own online store, build their menu, and start selling in minutes. They also have their own merchant services gateway to take credit cards.
 

MarketByte Online Ordering

With a MarketByte store, you also get big features you would only pay for if you had a custom-built e-commerce store. Intelligent SEO that will get you found on a Google search without paying any extra. Complete store management, including customer communication directly over SMS. Adjusting orders and refunding. Exporting your data for reporting (tips, taxes, etc), delivery options, curbside options, and more.

With a MarketByte online ordering store, you don't have to worry about anyone else using your customer data, or having your customer seeing competitor ads while shopping with you.

Their platform only costs $49 monthly to start, and they take no commissions or fees for selling at any volume. It's a very robust and innovative solution for anyone looking to "really" start an online store.

Last month, MarketByte and UniPro Foodservice signed an agreement to allow UniPro to endorse the MarketByte Online Ordering solution to their 850+ foodservice distribution locations across the country. Those distributors are now taking the MarketByte solution to the restaurant operators and food outlets who are, in turn, able to quickly create an e-commerce store with their restaurant menu options and get back to business.

Louie Newton, Chief Information Officer for UniPro recently said, “This is just what the foodservice industry needs right now: an efficient and cost-effective way to enable online order management with an easy to use eCom tool” about MarketByte.

Many of those restaurants have reported back to MarketByte, their success in using the platform, and how it's created new revenue verticals they never knew they had.

A spokesperson from MarketByte commented, "What we are seeing happen when folks in the restaurant industry use the MarketByte Online Ordering platform has been incredible. We get reports daily from the field of how our users love the simplicity but powerful under-the-hood features our platform offers."

And it's not just the restaurant industry that has discovered this powerful online ordering tool - Fireworks Over America, one of the nation's largest fireworks distributors, has also partnered with MarketByte to bring online shopping to the fireworks industry. Michael Ingram, Executive Vice President for Fireworks Over America, recently had this to say about MarketByte, "The MarketByte platform is an excellent plug and play e-commerce option for seasonal firework retailers across the country. Operators can have a fully functional website and a merchant provider in a matter of minutes, that also comes with the ability to provide curbside pickup."

MarketByte told ADM that they work every day to keep innovating and bring new features to their platform. Along with online ordering, they also have a complete website building suite, optimized SEO like no other, machine learning intelligence that monitors review and reputation sites like Yelp, TripAdvisor, and FourSquare to react automatically to bad reviews (or good). Customer engagement through SMS texting campaigns is also baked right into their online ordering platform and just a plethora of other features. Check them out at https://marketbyte.com