Instagram Shopping came to fruition in 2017, born to bring you a new shopping experience, and according to the creators themselves, it is one of the most important innovations on the platform. Not only is Instagram Shopping bringing brands a new way to connect directly with customers, it's also offering users a practical, much simpler way of shopping for products by brands they love.
In this article you’ll learn…
The Future of Fashion: Shopping at the Tap of a Finger
How does Instagram Shopping work? Well, it's easy! This new function allows companies to link directly to their products on Instagram with a 5-tag limit per post. This offers their customers direct and instantaneous access to product information without having to leave the app. All users need to do is tap on the little shopping basket icon on the bottom left corner of the picture and all of the product details appear. If the user were to be interested in the product, all they would have to do is tap on the informative label to open a new window to access the "buy" option. Then once the user clicks on "buy", the app takes them directly to the product page within the site...and all of this happens, as we mentioned before, without leaving the app.
It was only till recently that this function was limited to Germany, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Spain, France, Italy and the UK, but as of the 21st of March, it is now also available in 35 other countries such as Argentina, Belgium, Holland and Greece.
Just 5 requisites to access three great benefits of Instagram Shopping
Contrary to the 10,000-follower requisite to access the swipe-up feature in Instagram Stories, there is no follower minimum for users to activate Instagram Shopping. All you need to have to use this function is:
- An Instagram business account.
- The latest version of the app.
- At least 9 posts published to your profile.
- A website which sells physical products.
- An integrated catalog on Facebook via Shopify or BigCommerce
5 requisites and approval by the Instagram team is all it takes for companies to boost traffic to their websites. Providing direct access to e-commerce sites will not only entice consumers to investigate products further, incrementing traffic, but will also subsequently help businesses gain better SEO positioning on Google. By incrementing traffic to your e-commerce through this new feature, you will also be increasing potential online sales. These three great benefits are what businesses constantly seek to achieve, and now, this is made even more possible thanks to Instagram’s new feature.
An example of the success that the implementation of this new feature brings is summed up in the words of Shari Lott, the founder and CEO of Spearmintlove: “Shopping on Instagram accomplishes one of the most critical tasks in improving e-commerce performance: it makes it easier to buy. With one click, our audience can go directly to the product page and add to their cart. Reducing search time and clicks improves conversion and revenue. When we launched the feature, we experienced a 25% increase in traffic and an 8% increase in revenue attributable to shopping on Instagram.”
An Indispensable Tool
Many companies, big and small, have already activated this function on their Instagram accounts, especially after seeing the positive results that 20 American retailers gained; among the first users of this feature were Kate Spade, JackThreads and Warby Parker. And the truth is, what better social media channel than Instagram for driving traffic to your e-commerce site and boosting sales? After all, this social app is used for sharing and discovering new passions and, according to data provided by Instagram, more than 200 million users visit one or more business profiles daily.
Benefit, Bobbi Brown and Urban Outfitters are some of the firms that have already started making use of Instagram Shopping to build closer and more efficient connections with consumers. This is how they’re doing it:
Want to know more about how to take full advantage of the fashion, luxury and cosmetic industries' favorite app? Read about how to make the most of the Instagram Stories feature, here.
By Launchmetrics Content Team
The Launchmetrics content team is always on the lookout for new trends in the fashion and technology sector. We are geeks with style and lovers of good stories!
