After a successful trial period in the US, Instagram’s new online shopping feature has been made available in eight countries, including the UK. Instagram is already used by thousands of brands to promote their products to consumers and the addition will allow sellers to tag products, displaying pop ups with prices.
The shopping mode was first trialled for a year in the US and beta tested in the UK using brands Mahabis, Marks & Spencer and Heidi Klein. The addition makes it easier than ever for brands to direct consumers to their e-commerce stores from Instagram without disrupting user experience, by using the tagging feature on image posts. The limit is currently 5 product tags for a single image or 20 tags for multi-image posts.
Once these tags have been added, which will display the name and price of the product, they will remain hidden on a post until the user clicks the shopping bag button in the bottom left of the image to display the product tags; another click, and the user can remove these from their sight. Once a product tag is clicked, the user will be taken to a separate product page, where they can they click through to the brand’s e-commerce website and purchase the product.
This new feature holds huge potential benefits for your businesses’ e-commerce and social media strategy, as the UK’s 20 biggest online-only retailers increased their sales by 23% between 2016-2017, which shows that online purchasing is on the rise.
With over 800 million active users on Instagram monthly, 80% of which follow shopping businesses according to Instagram’s head of business Jim Squires, the new Instagram shop mode provides businesses with a huge selling platform to take advantage of and promote their products in a user friendly and accessible way.
Do you need help with developing your e-commerce or social media strategy? Don't hesitate to contact us on 01202 684400 for a no obligation chat about how can help your business to succeed in its marketing goals!
