How Instagram’s New Shopping Tool for Creators Will Benefit Influencers

It is no secret that as of January 2023, Instagram had over 2 billion monthly active users and over 500 million active daily users, Instagram is quickly becoming the future of eCommerce. With many of its users visiting the app multiple times a day, many businesses are taking advantage of that high conversion rate to promote and sell their products. In late March of 2019, they released a new update allowing users to Instagram shop online from select retailers, creating a seamless buying experience for the user directly on the app.

This allowed users to quickly and easily shop looks from creators right when they see them, eliminating the extra steps of attempting to find the product online. The only question is, did it work?

Is Instagram The Future Of Ecommerce?

With Instagram creating a more eCommerce-friendly user experience, it was just a matter of time until they brought the in-app shopping a step further. In the past few years, a new job title of “Instagram Influencer” has now been established, bringing forth a whole new area of advertising and branding for eCommerce brands across the globe.

With this trend of Instagram influencers being ‘the modern rel=”noopener noreferrer” day celebrity’, Instagram’s rel=”noopener noreferrer” new shopping tool for creators has now expanded to Influencers and creators to provide direct links to the clothing items and products they are promoting. This is an upgrade to the classic Instagram shopping in stories that many influencers implement to share links to products. This also opens up doors to exponential sales, providing a quick and easy way for customers to instantly purchase items that they love. 

Benefits of Instagram Influencers

A large slice of why the impact that social media channels have on users purchasing actions and overall influence is so high for eCommerce businesses is because of Instagram Influencers. Like mentioned previously, these ‘modern day celebrities’ are completely changing the world of social media marketing.

Collaborating with Influencers to run campaigns such as promoting new products, Collections, and events is a huge way they are used, as well as having longer partnerships to become essentially walking advertisements, or ambassadors, for their brand. The benefits of these collaborations for eCommerce sites are essentially the same as celebrities, but even better because these influencers are looked at as “real” people. Customers seeing a real person loving and using a certain brand or product creates a more valued opinion to the user of what the company has to offer.

Influencers and Instagram Ads

With the many creators on Instagram transforming their classic 9-5 job into spending time promoting brands on Instagram, Influencers have much more opportunity to promote with now having access to this new feature, as well as much higher conversion rates for eCommerce businesses. As well as this new access feature, Instagram has taken it another step further to now offer a new update to the app, bringing in an Instagram in-app browsing and checkout feature to the app.

How Instagram In-App Browsing Works

With this new checkout feature, Instagram has given the app a much more eCommerce-driven experience, treating Instagram like a “mini mall” for eCommerce businesses. This update allows users to use Instagram to browse what products they may want to purchase within the app. To purchase the clothing item, users can click a direct link on each post which leads them to an Instagram shopping page where they can choose their size, color, and quantity of the item. After clicking the link, within minutes you are all checked out and your product is ordered- all happening within the app.

Following your first checkout experience, you will get in-app notifications and updates on your order that you placed, as well as all your payment information saved for an even easier and more seamless experience the next time you shop. Having all this directly on the app is not only convenient for users, but gives brands the opportunity to provide easy access to links and information on their product to the over 500 million daily Instagram visitors.

How to Get Approved for Shopping on Instagram

First off, in order to be able to enable product tagging, you must have your Instagram set to a business profile. This update is available for businesses as well as for a select group of Influencers and people throughout the platform.

To access the Instagram shopping requirements, you simply need to set up your account as a business profile, connect it to a Facebook page, and connect your products. While setting up your account to a business profile, you simply go to Settings, Account, Set up Business Profile, and the rest is seamless to follow.

Benefits of Business Profiles on Instagram

There are many benefits to having a business profile for your Instagram whether you are an Influencer, business, or even just for average users. You will get automated insights on each of your posts, your weekly profile visits, and your story views.

As well as that, the look of your profile will look slightly different, having an additional section to put what type of business or area of expertise you are, as well as links to your website, phone number, and email address. On top of all the benefits, you also will get the outstanding feature of offering in-app browsing.

How Do These Changes Impact The eCommerce Industry?

Being successful in the eCommerce industry involves finding a way to get your product into the eyes of your customer virtually. Doing this in the over-crowded market of the internet is quite difficult on your own. Using influencer and encouraging them to make use of this new feature heavily expands who is seeing your content, as well as gives them a quicker and easier checkout experience rel=”noopener noreferrer” than ever before.

According to statistics, 72% of Instagram users claim to have bought a product after seeing it on the app. Millions of people use Instagram to seek out and discover new products to purchase. With that large of an audience seeking out new trends and products on the platform, it is a no-brainer to implement this feature within your marketing, especially for Influencers.

To Review

This new tool is essential for influencers promoting eCommerce brands to drive engagement, maximise the effectiveness of the post, as well as drive sales to the company being promoted. Keep in mind this shopping tool when creating your next branded post or campaign to maximise your profit potential.