Facebook to Compete With E-Commerce Giants
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Facebook to Compete With E-Commerce Giants

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By MBN Staff | MBN staff - Thu, 05/21/2020 - 11:47

Facebook knows that the best way to survive crises and stay relevant in the market is to diversify. This week, Mark Zuckerberg's company launched Shops, an online shopping service that will allow businesses to display and sell products on their social media platforms.

“Our goal is to make shopping seamless and empower anyone from a small business owner to a global brand to use our apps to connect with customers. That's why we're launching Facebook Shops and investing in features across our apps that inspire people to shop and make buying and selling online easier,” said the California based company in a statement. According to AB Bernstein, Shops could unlock a US$1.3 trillion market, while Morgan Stanley said the company can become a competitor to Amazon and Alphabet.

Facebook also wants to cover payment services and on Tuesday announced that it would launch Facebook Pay, a service that will help consolidate payment tools on its social media platforms, including Whatsapp and Instagram. The service will allow users to send money or make payment with a PIN number or biometric data through their smartphones. In June, the tech giant began including the label ‘from Facebook’ within its apps, including Messenger, Instagram and WhatsApp.

Meanwhile, Marco Casarin was appointed as the new Director of Facebook Mexico, replacing Xóchilt Balzola-Widmann, who resigned in early 2020 and now serves as Apple Director of Sales in Germany.

More news below: 

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  • The crisis unleashed by COVID-19 has caused the sale of Fox Sports, one of the conditions for the Disney-Fox merger, to become more complicated. In early April, the Federal Communications Institute (IFT) decided to suspend the deadline to disincorporate Fox Sports in Mexico. Now, the process is scheduled to end in August instead of May since the suspension was granted for a period of three months, which began on March 9 and ends on June 19, 2020.

  • In Mexico, according to a survey conducted by Mercado Libre, 57 percent of those polled say they will continue to use electronic payment methods once the COVID-19 crisis is over. “The way people pay for things is rapidly evolving and changing. COVID-19 has driven a significant shift in consumer spending habits spurred by economic uncertainty and a push toward the purchase of mainly essential items,” Phil Sealy, Research Director at ABI Research, said in a press release from the tech consulting firm.

  • Elon Musk’s space venture SpaceX prepares for its first manned mission: to launch two astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS). The feat, which is expected to occur in nine days, “will return human spaceflight to the US since the Space Shuttle was retired in 2011,” the company said in a statement.

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