Instagram is becoming an ever-more popular site for shopping, with users seeing images of things they like and then buying them. Now ecommerce platform provider Shopify is making this easier for retailers and brands across the UK and seven other markets.
Instagram, a fun, popular photo-sharing app for mobile devices, is increasingly being seen as the venue of choice for merchants in fashion, jewellery, beauty, furniture and home decor to grow their customer base in a meaningful way. Riding on the successes from the earlier rollout for Shopify’s US merchants, the expanded integration will allow shoppers all over the world to experience this unique commerce feature on Instagram.
In the UK, M&S has been conducting a trial of selling on Instagram and found it so successful that it planning now to roll it out as a sales channel later this year.
With the objective of helping our merchants reach more shoppers around the world, Shopify continues to invest in social commerce so brands and small businesses can sell to shoppers wherever they are. With its 500 million daily active users, Instagram is a natural integration alongside Shopify’s other sales channels like Facebook, BuzzFeed, Pinterest and eBay, and will help brands leverage mobile to reach consumers around the world.
“Shoppers around the world increasingly demand unique experiences that shorten the path to purchase, and the future of commerce will need to meet and exceed these evolving demands. We continue to partner and experiment with leading social platforms to support our merchants in reaching their customers wherever they are. The expanded collaboration with Instagram is indicative of our commitment to support our merchants in growing their business and reaching more customers globally.”
Satish Kanwar, Vice President, Product at Shopify
Shopify’s sales channel integration with Instagram allows merchants to sell directly to consumers through product tagging. This allows shoppers to discover and purchase products all within the app itself, shortening the path to purchase.
“We know that people come to Instagram to be inspired and discover new products from businesses they love, and we want them to easily be able to learn more, consider and ultimately purchase those products. By integrating with Shopify, we’re giving even more businesses the ability to reach people at that moment of inspiration while making it easier for their potential customers to shop directly from Instagram.”
Susan Rose, Director of Product Marketing, Instagram
Shopping on Instagram is now available to merchants selling in the US, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, Germany, France, Italy, Spain and Brazil.
One Response
I’ve wavered whether to enable this or not, and have decided to go with not.
according to this article i’m a lunatic, why wouldnt you want to be on instagram?
apparently the pro’s are so blatantly obvious nobody need bother mentioning them, anywhere, ever.
the cons so few it’s not worth mentioning them, anywhere, ever.
very helpful when it comes to making a decision.
i mean even facebook, before they opened the marketplace tab, there was a dearth of in-depth articles as to why, or why not, sell on facebook, the ups and down, ins and outs, pros and cons, from a multitude of sources.
not so for instagram, apparently you should already know everything you need to about instagram.
two whole articles dedicated to instragram on tamebay today, two articles, not just one, and the most either tries to educate anyone is to say “you should be on instagram” and “everyone will be on instagram, its inevitable”, except that 5 of the top 5 sellers aren’t on instagram.
maybe you could just put the adverts somewhere else? instead of disguising them as content-free content?