From October 1, 2022, Facebook will shut down its live shopping service that it had first released in Thailand in 2018. The feature will continue to be available on Instagram.

“As consumers’ viewing behaviours are shifting to short-form video, we are shifting our focus to Reels on Facebook and Instagram, Meta’s short-form video product,” Meta, the parent company of Facebook said in a blog post. 

“If you want to reach and engage people through video, try experimenting with Reels and Reels ads on Facebook and Instagram. You can also tag products in Reels on Instagram to enable deeper discovery and consideration. If you have a shop with checkout and want to host live shopping events on Instagram, you can set up live shopping on Instagram,” the company added. 

In November last year the company had trialed “Live Shopping for Creators” which allowed brands and creators to create a cross-stream on their pages. While these moves to create a live service shopping platform had the potential to do well as a revenue stream, it looks like Meta hasn’t been able to capitalise on it in an effective way. 

But they’re not the only ones reigning in their live shopping rollouts. Chinese app TikTok has cancelled its plans to expand its live shopping service to the US and parts of Europe. The company had launched into the UK last year, but it did not do well with consumers.  

However, the one company that seems to have maintained a stable live shopping product is Glance, the subsidiary of the InMobi Group. Through their app which displays through the lock screen, consumers are able to make use of the features available to get what they want on demand. 

But Meta’s shift away from many of its product rollouts is telling. In the past few months the company has pushed for Instagram and Facebook to co-opt many of the features that draws users to Instagram. In the last quarterly earnings call, CEO of Meta, Mark Zuckerberg had stated that the company would be pushing for more short-form video on its platforms.