Apparently Meta has decided to can their checkout after trying to force everyone to use it. This is for Instagram and Facebook shops.
Now they want to redirect shoppers to the merchant’s website for checkout. But they still have a “cart” function in the meta shop so when the shopper is ready to checkout all the cart items need to be transmitted to our WooCommerce store and placed in the cart there.
Meta is asking me to set up a “checkout URL” that will pass the shopping session parameters (item id, quantity, etc.) to Woo. Has anyone accomplished this yet? Seems like it will require a custom PHP function. Would love to get more info. from someone who has already been down this road.
Thank you.
The page I need help with: [log in to see the link]
Thank you for sharing the details about Meta’s recent change in their checkout process for Instagram and Facebook shops. I understand the challenge of needing to pass the cart data from the Meta shop to your WooCommerce store to enable on-site checkout.
To achieve this, you are correct that a custom PHP function or plugin customization is typically required. Since this goes beyond the default features of WooCommerce, we’re not able to provide support for this within our scope.
Has anyone found a solution to this or does Woocommerce have a solution for creating a seamless checkout process from Meta Shop to Woocommerce checkout cart? Or is there a way to disable the cart function in Meta shop and redirect customers to your site and still maintain a Meta Product catalog for potential customers to browse.
I understand you’re looking for a way to make the Meta Shop cart hand over smoothly to WooCommerce checkout, or alternatively bypass the cart while keeping your product catalog visible. As my colleague mentioned earlier, WooCommerce itself doesn’t currently provide a built-in feature for this. Achieving it would require either a custom PHP function or a third-party solution, which is why working with a developer via WooExperts (https://woocommerce.com/experts/) or Codeable (https://codeable.io) would be the best way forward.
Since this shift from Meta affects many merchants, it may also be worth submitting a feature request here: https://woocommerce.com/feature-requests/woocommerce/ so our developers can review and consider adding support for this workflow in future updates.
In the meantime, developers can help you set up a custom function that reads parameters from Meta’s checkout URL and pre-populates the WooCommerce cart, ensuring a seamless experience for your customers.
Thank you so much for your reply. I will submit a feature request. This is a big challenge for most companies and affects customer satisfaction. Companies using Shopify are able to navigate this change seamlessly and Woocommerce customers are at a disadvantage. I hope your team can facilitate this request soon.
Best
Himanthi
This reply was modified 8 months, 1 week ago by himanthi2477390.
Thanks for your thoughtful reply! You’re absolutely right; this shift from Meta is a big challenge for many WooCommerce merchants.
I wanted to let you know that there’s already an existing feature request for supporting Meta checkout URLs. You’re welcome to add your vote and share your use case there. It helps our developers gauge interest and prioritize future improvements.
Appreciate you raising this and advocating for a smoother experience for Woo users!
Absolutely @megunticook, sounds like you’re on the right track!
I took a peek at the resource you mentioned and it looks super helpful as a starting point. If you haven’t already, you might consider creating a child theme using the Create Block Theme plugin. That way, you can safely add the snippet to the functions.php file without affecting your main theme’s updates.
Once you’ve tested it out, we’d love to hear how it goes! Sharing your findings and experience here could be a huge help to others navigating the same Meta checkout transition.
I reviewed and installed the PHP function in functions.php in my child theme and am testing but Meta just keeps giving me a generic error message with no details when I try and test. For “Step 2” in the Meta update tester I’ve submitted “https://swansislandcompany.com/checkout” which it seems happy with.
Any thoughts as to what might be going on here or how to get a more specific idea of the error? Any way I can see the URL that Meta is generating?
Is it just me or is Meta pretty much a black hole timesuck?
Thank you for getting back and for clarifying the situation. I completely understand how this can be frustrating, especially since it’s part of a new transition that may take some time to become fully compatible with most eCommerce platforms.
I recommend upvoting the request created by @himanthi2477390 — the more votes it receives, the higher the chances the development team will prioritize it.
Thanks. Did you ask an AI to generate the code? Be very surprised if it actually works but I’ll give it a try.
Unfortunately I logged in today to find the Meta configuration for the checkout URL is totally grayed out and apparently disabled. Have seen this before, seems to happen randomly. But it means I can’t actually test anything now:
Meta is the epitome of “enshittification”–the whole platform is a steaming pile.
Thank you for the update — I completely understand how frustrating that must feel, especially when settings appear to change or become unavailable without warning.
The behavior you described (the Meta configuration being grayed out) sounds like an issue on Meta’s end rather than with WooCommerce itself.
I’d recommend checking directly with Meta support to confirm whether this is a known issue or an account-specific restriction. They’ll be in the best position to clarify why the configuration is currently disabled.
Glad to hear that it seems to be working again! That’s great progress. Feel free to get back to us if it stops responding as expected or if you run into any more errors while testing the checkout flow — we’ll be here to take a closer look with you.
Looking forward to hearing how your next round of tests goes!
Update: I’ve got the PHP function working and an URL that appears to work correctly. I’m in the final step of the checkout URL submission process Meta provides, and my URL works correctly when I select a few products in Meta’s test and click the “preview checkout” button. It opens up our woocommerce checkout page with the correct products and quantities added, plus a coupon code if provided.
But then when I click the “Submit” button at the bottom of the form, which appears to be the final step, Meta returns a useless “Failed to Submit URL” message with no hint as to what the issue is.
So close yet so far. Any thoughts as to what might be going on? Has anyone else managed to submit their URL?
I really appreciate the detailed update, and it’s great to hear that your PHP function is now working and correctly passing products, quantities, and coupon codes to your WooCommerce checkout — that’s solid progress.
Since the “Failed to submit URL” message appears when testing directly on Meta’s platform, this part of the issue is likely happening on Meta’s end rather than within WooCommerce or your custom code. The submission process involves Meta validating your checkout URL against their own internal systems, and when it fails without a clear reason, it usually points to a temporary validation or configuration problem within Meta’s interface.
The best way forward would be to contact Meta’s developer support for more insight into why the submission failed. You can reach them directly at: https://developers.facebook.com/support/
They’ll be able to check logs for your account or URL submission attempt and clarify whether the issue stems from your setup or from their validation system.
Please let us know what you hear back — it’ll be helpful for other users going through the same Meta checkout transition.
