The revolution has arrived . Many even wonder why this had not happened before. Instagram has moved a tab and has announced that it will include purchases within the application itself, allowing users to buy the products that appear within the photographs. At the moment, the initiative will be available to 20 well-known brands, which will clearly pose a threat to Amazon’s leadership.
And is that Instagram is somewhere between a social media application and an advertising platform. Regardless of how you organize your feed, you are guaranteed to see ads sandwiched between meme posts and images posted by your friends or celebrities. Now Instagram makes it even easier for brands to advertise to their users: Instagram users in the United States can now buy products from more than 20 brands without having to leave the app.
The platform – owned by Facebook – has given brands the option to include “product labels” in their publications since 2017, where they can find information about the articles that appear in publications and stories, as well as the option to buy the products. from the brand’s website. Now, instead of redirecting users to the platform, Instagram allows users to buy directly through the application.
Here’s how it works: When users click on a product to see the details, they’ll see the option to “Post to Instagram.” From there, they can enter their billing and shipping information, which is stored for future purchases, and track their order. That’s basically it. It is designed to be simple and presumably to allow impulse buying.
For now, the function is only enabled for 22 brands: Prada, Balmain, Oscar de la Renta, H&M and Zara and seven of them sell only makeup, such as Kylie Cosmetics and Anastasia Beverly Hills.
This is a natural move for Instagram, a platform whose users have become accustomed to advertising left and right. Branded posts are ads, just like many influencer and micro-influencer posts, even when they don’t carry the required advertising tag.
According to Instagram’s own metrics, 80% of users follow at least one business account. And brand accounts are a vital source of income for Instagram: in 2018 alone there were more than 25 million businesses in the application, 2 million of them used its advertising functions. According to a spokesperson, Instagram will introduce a “sales fee” to fund the purchase process and to “offset expenses related to the transaction.”
Instagram’s director of product management, Vishal Shah, previously referred to shopping on the platform as an “unexpected shopping” experience where people can “stumble upon a product – it’s like seeing something in the window in the real world: You really hadn’t gone shopping. “
Of course, even if you are not a follower of any business, brand or influencer on Instagram, the products you will see are not only shown by chance, the ads that are displayed are the result of sophisticated data collection algorithms that know literally everything about you. , including the types of ads that are most likely you click. By allowing brands to advertise and sell to consumers directly, Instagram is cutting the middleman even further.
Business is on the table. Remember that Instagram has more than a billion monthly users and many of them interested in fashion. The company believes that the purchases represent a massive new business opportunity. “We are thrilled to introduce even more ways for people to enjoy shopping on Instagram this year,” they comment on their blog.
It is a matter of time before the possibility of buying from Instagram is active in Spain.
