Instagram Shops & What’s New In 2021
Do you currently sell on Instagram? Instagram Shopping & Instagram Shops is a great way to sell your products for free to over 1 billion monthly active users. Instagram Shopping is a set of features that let people shop your photo’s and videos whilst they are in the app and then redirect them to your website to complete the transaction. Instagram’s new development is “Shops”, which is a fully customisable storefront that allows users to shop and pay directly on your IG business page.
In this post you’ll learn about;
Instagram Shopping Tags
Shopping tags has been available since 2018. It allows you to tag products from your catalogue in organic posts and Stories. Customers are linked directly through to product pages on your website.
Key features: (highlighted on the image below in red circles)
- Posts that contain tagged products appear with a shopping bag icon in the top right corner when viewing the account feed.
- When viewing a shoppable post, you can tap anywhere on the post to reveal the product’s description and price.
- There will be a ‘view products’ button in the bottom left of the post which brings up a menu with all tagged products within the post.
- All tagged products will appear on your profile in the Shopping tab.
- Products will appear within a user’s Search tab if Instagram deme it relevant to that user. This is one reason why you should invest in hashtag research and focus on developing a high Engagement Rate.
To use this feature all you need is a business profile, sell physical goods and have a product catalogue through Facebook or an integration partner.
Instagram Shops UK
Shops is currently available in the UK and takes Shopping Tags to the next level. However, it is limited when comparing to the features in the US. It allows businesses of all sizes to create a customisable shop and promote products within Instagram. It allows brands to create a seamless social shopping experience for their customers and it is free to setup. According to Instagram, “Shops are an immersive full-screen storefront that enable businesses to build their brand story and drive products discovery.”
- Shops is accessible from a business Instagram profile by tapping the ‘View Shop’ button or through the feed and Stories.
- Instagram are currently running tests in the UK on user interaction. Many IG users will see the “Shops” icon appearing in the bottom navigation bar.
Upcoming features for Instagram Shops UK
Whilst Instagram Shops is available in the UK, a number of the “key” features available in the US are still yet to be rolled out in this country. Below are some of the major developments that we expect to see in the UK in 2021:
- You can create storefronts for your shop. In the UK you can only show a product as the main image.
- You can create ‘collections’ for groups of products to make it easier for customers to buy and inspire them to purchase more products.
- You can add descriptive text to your collection page to enrich the content further.
- Checkout on Instagram is probably one of the most exciting developments that the UK is waiting for. This facility will allow IG users to build a basket, select delivery options and checkout whilst never leaving the IG app.
There are some factors to consider when using this feature;
- There are fees incurred; the selling fee is 5% per shipment or a flat fee of $0.40 for shipments of $8.00 or less. So, expect something similar for the UK.
- You lose out on valuable customer data (such as emails) as all communications are handled by Instagram rather than the brand directly.
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