There Are Now More Ways to Shop on Instagram

Good news for retailers, bad news for my wallet: Instagram announced last week that it has gone ahead and given us two new ways to shop on its platform.

Yes, now instead of just coveting items worn by my favorite faces on the social media app, bank account safe from potential draining, I can actually turn that state of dreamily wanting into one of tangibly owning. Those rainy day funds are perhaps not so safe after all.

According to Instagram, more than 90 million accounts tap to reveal tags in shopping posts every month—for those unfamiliar with the platform, that basically means you can buy something with a literal tap of your phone. So it makes sense for Instagram to capitalize on this data.

You may have noticed that you could shop from Stories back in June, when Instagram began testing the concept. It’s officially official, now—in fact, it’s being expanded to 46 countries, so it’s globally official. According to Instagram, more than one-third of the 400 million daily Stories visitors come to see the content from businesses, so if your followers are tuned into your Stories, this might be the place to make a few extra sales (or even a lot of sales, depending on your audience!).

One other way to shop is via Instagram’s Explore page—one that I always forget to use, to be honest—through what they’re calling a Shopping channel. Users may browse new accounts to discover organized by their interests (in this case, shopping) and find new retailers to do business with. The channel will reportedly continue to expand over the coming weeks.

So, how to sell on Instagram? The feature is only available to approved businesses, so make sure you get that sorted out first. An account must be approved for shopping on the platform (you can get more info on that, here).

Once that’s all sorted, setting up sales is no more challenging than tagging friends in a photo—you can get the step-by-step via Instagram, here.

Top image via Instagram

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JCK Contributing Editor

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