Hong Kong, May 20 -- Facebook on Tuesday unveiled free tools for retailers hit by the pandemic to create online storefronts. The initiative will help merchants set up shops on Facebook and Instagram, customise looks and display products.

"This is the biggest step that we've taken yet to enable commerce across our family of apps," said Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg. "If you're running a small business or if you're thinking about starting one even from your living room, you have a whole suite of tools available that can help." The primary focus of Facebook's "Shops" is to make it easy for businesses to have online storefronts to survive and ride the online shopping trend into the future.

"We really hope that our commerce soluti...