Now You Can Shop Instagram via Collections, Video, & Business Profiles
It’s the busiest shopping season of the year – and what better time to promote the shopping experience than on Instagram?
Thanks to three new Instagram shopping features, the booming social app is providing retailers with new and improved ways to leverage their social following to encourage purchases and gain sales.
Instagram debuts 3 new shopping features
The three new shopping features include:
1. Shopping Collection
The shopping collection feature allows consumers to save products of interest by tapping a “save to shopping collection” on the retailer’s ad.
Now when you come across a must-have item, save it to your Shopping collection to revisit it later. When you tap a product tag in Stories or Feed, tap the Save icon in the bottom right corner to save it to your Shopping collection.
Just like existing collections, you can access your Shopping collection from your profile and according to Instagram, it’s an “easy way to keep your wish list up-to-date and store creative gift ideas for the holidays.”
2. Shop via Video
As seen in the image above, the shop via video feature has an inserted shopping icon on branded videos that surfaces the products featured in the videos.
You can now shop in videos from your favorite brands. When you see a video in Feed from a brand you follow, tap the shopping icon in the bottom left corner to reveal the featured products and learn more about them.
3. Shop Tab for Business Profiles
Finally, there is a shop tab for business profiles that lets users browse products on the retailer’s Instagram account page.
With the redesign of the Shop tab on business profiles, users can quickly view all products featured in their shopping posts.
When you visit a business profile, tap on the ‘Shop’ button to see their products, such as the item name, price, and the post featuring the item. Now users can brows and buy from brand they love on Instagram, all in one single place.
History of Instagram Shopping
Shopping for Instagram first released to select countries last year, allowing users to shop their favorite brands right from within the Instagram feed without having to leave the app.
Instagram has now released the seamless shopping feature for Stories — the fastest growing segment on the platform that now doubles Snapchat in terms of active users.
Before Shopping, getting followers to a specific product in your store wasn’t easy. Businesses had to come up with clever workarounds or use third-party software.
That’s because Instagram doesn’t allow links in photo captions.
That all changed in 2017.
Instagram has evolved into a platform that offers unparalleled brand awareness and engagement with a massive audience of 1 billion.
Instagram is a natural fit for branding and product discovery because of its photo and video-centric focus.
According to a study by Yotpo,
“72% of customers said seeing Instagram photos of a product increases their chances of buying, and 38% of customers said they frequently purchase products they find on Instagram.”
For more on Instagram’s new shopping features, email [email protected]
You Might Be Interested In
