Sell on Instagram, Facebook & WhatsApp

Open Sales Channels in your site's sidebar (under Marketing). It is for E-commerce websites with products; a restaurant website does not have it.

Connect instant sync (recommended, about 5 minutes)

Open the Instagram, Facebook & WhatsApp card → Connect. You create a system user in your Meta Business settings — a robot user that only updates your own catalog — and paste its token:

• Disconnect any time — items already in the catalog stay, and the hourly link keeps working as the backup.
• If your website is unpublished or suspended, instant sync automatically takes your items off the catalog and resumes with a full push when you’re live again.
• The card shows how many products are in your catalog, approved, under review or need a fix, and a small activity feed (“2 min ago — Change pushed, 3 pushed”). Its chip tells you the state at a glance: Instant sync · N items, Instant sync retrying, paused, or Hourly link · Meta pulled 20 min ago when you are on the link instead.

Set up the catalog in Commerce Manager (about 10 minutes)

What stays in sync

On a Blank canvas or any canvas-based design, the catalog exists only while Sell products online is switched on (Settings → Appearance → “What this website does”). Switching selling off stops the link and clears the connected catalog on the next sync.

• Products, prices, photos, stock, delivery charge — connected catalogs get every change within seconds (including stock moved by orders, returns and purchase receipts); the link carries it on Meta's next pull.
• Prices go out the way a customer pays them — GST included. If your store is set to add GST at checkout, the catalog carries the grossed-up final price, worked out with the same rule the checkout uses. A struck-through price is sent as the MRP. More in Sell on Google & Bing.
• Sold out? The item shows unavailable instead of disappearing — no broken tags on old posts.
• Kept out automatically: digital downloads, auctions and affiliate products — Meta's commerce rules allow physical products only — and products sold only as a subscription. A pharmacy website is not sent at all — Meta restricts medicine listings. Products you've limited to members or specific groups are also kept off, since these catalogs show to everyone — and so is a product you deliver only in some areas (Where you deliver); “Everywhere except…” products are listed. The Sales Channels page lists anything skipped, with the reason.
• Rejected items are never hidden — the Listings section shows each product’s Meta status with the reason; fix it in your dashboard and it’s re-pushed within seconds. The same status sits at the top of the product’s own Google & Instagram listing section, and you get an app alert on your phone the moment Meta rejects something (a WhatsApp message too, once you map the listing rejected layout in the WhatsApp hub).
• Hide many at once: tick products on the Products page and use Google & Instagram → Hide / Show in the bulk bar — hidden products carry a small Not on Google tag and leave the catalog within seconds.

Tips that make listings perform

• Set real brands and barcodes per product (product form → "Google & Instagram listing") — tagged posts and ads match better. Only a maker's barcode is sent; an in-store code (starting with 2) stays on your website.
• Use clean product photos — Meta rejects images with heavy text overlays or watermarks.
• Product names should describe the product, not the offer — "MEGA SALE!!" names get rejected; the readiness panel on Sales Channels flags them first.