Facebook to shut down its live shopping feature on 1 October

Facebook is shutting down its live video shopping feature on 1 October, two years after releasing the feature.

The feature let influencers and retailers host live shopping events directly on Facebook, where they could invite their followers to purchase from a carousel of products.

The platform is shutting down this native live stream shopping initiative, as well as the ability to create product playlists or tag products on Facebook, parent company Meta confirmed to Insider, adding that it will focus instead on short-form content, Reel, reports Business Insider.

"As consumers' viewing behaviors are shifting to short-form video, we are shifting our focus to Reels on Facebook and Instagram, Meta's short-form video product," the company wrote in a Tuesday 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 to host Live Shopping events on Instagram, you can set up Live Shopping on Instagram."

Facebook began beta testing its native live shopping tools in 2018, according to TechCrunch.

This isn't the first monetization tool that Meta has changed recently. In July, Instagram sunset its native affiliate-marketing program after more than a year of testing. Over the past year, several Instagram bonus programs, like the Reels Play Bonus, which pays creators for meeting certain benchmarks, have either drastically changed or been retired.