Meta Phases Out Native Checkout Experience For Facebook & Instagram Shops
Meta has finally given up on trying to keep Facebook and Instagram shop transactions onsite, announcing gradual transition to external checkout only starting this month.
A recent Facebook Business Help Center post explains that while customers will continue to discover new products on Facebook and Instagram, they'll now be directed to shops own websites to complete checkout and that several aspects of shops, ads, and ad reporting will be affected by the change.
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.
Due to this upcoming change to the checkout method, several aspects of your shop, Shops ads and ads reporting will be affected:
Shops
- Checkout on Facebook and Instagram
- Management of your shop’s post-purchase experience
Shops ads
- Available conversion locations and conversion events
- Ads reporting for checkout-related metrics that occur on Meta technologies
This change won’t be made to all shops at once. Your shop may continue to use checkout on Facebook and Instagram for a time. But most shops should be updated by the end of August 2025. Meta will notify you before updating your shop.
Note: Shops connected to a third-party order management system, such as Magento or Adobe Commerce Cloud, will be updated at a later date.
Meta says that moving the checkout process to merchant's websites will allow them to manage checkout and post-purchase experiences how they like while still benefiting from rich discovery and consideration surfaces on Facebook and Instagram like shop’s home page, collections and product pages.
Because checkout will no longer take place on Facebook or Instagram, features used to manage the post-purchase experience in Commerce Manager will also be discontinued. Here are the features that will be going away:
For Shopify sellers: You should continue to process returns and refunds as usual until all existing onsite orders are completed. You’ll temporarily lose order attribution in Shopify for orders tied to Facebook and Instagram shops during the transition period. If you are a pre-order seller, orders to be fulfilled after a particular date will not be sold on site (specific date is yet to be determined).
For all other sellers:
- Payouts: Payment processing will be discontinued for Shops. You’ll no longer be able to conduct transactions in your Shops on Facebook and Instagram. You’ll still be able to see your balance, payout history, financial reports, tax forms and charge history as archived data for a period of time after the update.
- Order management: All of the order management features will be discontinued for orders placed after the migration occurs. This includes:
- Orders: For new orders, you’ll no longer be able to see order status, download your order history, manage orders in bulk, or take actions on individual orders. You’ll still be able to view a record of existing orders on Commerce Manager, but order management will all be done from your website.
- Returns: You'll no longer be able to manage returns in Commerce Manager. You’ll need to manage returns on your own website or on a connected ecommerce platform.
- Disputes: Meta will no longer offer chargeback or dispute resolution services. You won’t be able to view, manage or check the status of chargebacks on new orders in Commerce Manager.
Inbox: You’ll no longer be able to use Inbox to respond to customer messages.
Reporting for shop ads, conversions, and other metrics will also be changing or going away and sellers may need to take some additional actions, to update their shops - sellers are encouraged to read the full update to determine how this change will impact their businesses.
The move comes after Meta went the opposite direction just 2 years ago, announcing in 2023 that all Facebook and Instagram shops would be required to use onsite checkout and that existing Shops which directed users to an external ecommerce site would have to transition to Facebook and Instagram checkout by April 24, 2024.
Liz Morton
Outdoor eCommerce Founder and Lead Strategist, Milo McMahon, says he believes Meta has simply discovered that all of the complex aspects of handling onsite checkout (including sales tax compliance) isn't worth the effort for what they are getting out of Shops.
In addition to cost concerns, Meta may see pushing Shops back to external checkout as a way to try to mitigate antitrust cases and decisions in Europe and the US - similar to their launch of a Marketplace Partnership Program which allows listings from Poshmark, eBay and other marketplaces to appear in Facebook Marketplace results.
Liz Morton
How will Meta ending onsite checkout for Facebook and Instagram stores impact your business? Let us know in the comments below!
