Instagram Head of Business, Jim Squires, stated, “People come to Instagram every day to discover and buy products from their favorite businesses. We want to be that seamless experience. Whether it’s a local artisan, florist or clothing store, shopping directly on Instagram has never been easier.”
Instagram has experienced some major updates over the past year, but one of the most beneficial is the Shopping feature. While there were some initial kinks, they’ve been working them out and making strides towards improving the user experience for both brands and consumers. The IG shopping feature is revolutionizing social media as we know it; it makes it convenient for consumers to connect with brands on a deeper level and perform a shopping transaction straight from their newsfeed. This blog will provide an overview of the Instagram shopping feature so that your business can be prepared to sell on the platform and market products to a wider audience.
So, How Does It Work?
In order to be eligible for the shopping feature, a brand must have an Instagram Business profile and a Facebook Shop. This feature allows a business profile to serve as a storefront where the brand can tag products featured in its posts with shoppable links. A post can include 5 product tags per image, or 20 product tags in a post carousel. When someone taps on the tags in a post, they are provided with a product image and description, the price, and a clickable direct link so they can continue with their purchase. Although these posts will be visible within the page feed, in order for the Shop tab to be publicly activated on a profile, the brand must have at least 9 posts using the shopping feature. This Shop tab will feature only the posts that include product tags, making it even easier for consumers to find products.
The images below demonstrate how users can shop from your Instagram post. Notice the small white circle on the bottom left corner of Image 1. Once users tap that circle, the tagged products will appear, as we see in Image 2. When these product tags are tapped, Image 3 will appear on the screen showing more product details, the direct website link, and more product tags featured in the post.