As Instagram has more than 800 million active monthly users, your chances of reaching the target audiences are higher.
Instagram is one of the most popular digital shopping platforms, especially for fashion companies and clothing labels. However, if you want to purchase a product, you need to give some effort to find them.
The shopping feature of Instagram is available in Austria, Switzerland, Germany, and 8 other countries. This feature allows Instagram to open a new portal of the marketplace. Users can purchase products from their favorite brands within the application without any lengthy searching. This feature is extremely beneficial for companies and brands.
The Success of Shopping Feature in the United States
The concept of Instagram shopping isn’t brand new. Instagram introduced the shopping feature in the United States in 2016. However, at the initial stages, it was only available for handpicked designer brands. Later, Instagram released the shopping feature for other companies in the United States in 2017.
The social media platform has recently introduced its new feature to eleven other countries: Austria, Germany, Spain, Brazil, Canada, Switzerland, Australia, United Kingdom, Poland, France, and Italy.
How Does Instagram Shopping Work?
Instagram shopping is famous for its user-friendly interface. The approval time short for shopping is short. This helps the companies to mark their products for purchase.
Requirement for Companies
If you want to sell directly through Instagram, your company or business must receive approval for the shopping feature. These are the requirements that you need to fulfill:
- Your Instagram profile is set as a business account
- Your Instagram business profile is connected with the Facebook catalog
- The registered office of your company is established is one of the approved countries
- The products you sell are in good shape and they follow the terms of use.
Before your company is given the Instagram shopping feature, the social media platform takes a couple of days to run some background checks. If you notice the ‘Shopping’ option in the settings, it means that your business has been verified by Instagram and you can activate product markers:
- Click on the avatar of your profile and click the ‘Get Started’ option
- Choose the option ‘Shopping’ and ‘ Continue’
- Choose a product catalog and click Done to complete the process
If you want to select single products, then go through these steps:
- Choose an image and then add a caption, effect, and filter
- Tap on the products that are visible on the image
- Enter the name of the product and choose the search field
- Click Done and then click on ‘Share’
How Does Shopping work with the Shopping Feature of Instagram?
With the help of the shopping feature, users can recognize items. They just need to click on the white shopping bag in the upper right corner. The shopping feature works as follows:
- After clicking the picture, a tiny window appears that displays the price as well as the description of the specific product.
- When you click the arrow, you can directly visit the product page of the online shop of the company.
- You can purchase from there normally.
However, don’t forget that Instagram shopping is only available for mobile applications. You cannot access this feature from the desktop version.
Advantages of Instagram Shopping
Instagram shopping provides tons of benefits to the companies that sell physical services and products. The searching efforts of users have been gradually decreased thanks to Instagram shopping. Unlike going to a traditional store and purchasing things, you can purchase any products from Instagram with 2 clicks. With the help of Instagram shopping, American businesses and brands are successfully increasing their growth.
As per a report, many American companies boosted their sales and traffic by implementing Instagram shopping.
As Instagram has more than 800 million active monthly users, your chances of reaching the target audiences are higher. Apart from that, more than 75% of Instagram accounts follow at least one of their favorite brands.
Tips for Selling Your Products on Instagram
To use the new Instagram shopping feature, you need to attract the attention of the users and provide them a consistent and easy shopping experience. Here are some tips that will help you to sell your products on Instagram:
- Upload a minimum of 9 shopping posts: This is one of the best tricks to sell your products on Instagram. This is how you can activate the shopping button.
- Use Instagram Stories: You cannot sell your products or services through Instagram stories. However, you can use the stories to promote them.
- Use Appropriate Hashtags: If you want to increase the reach and discoverability of your posts, then you should always choose relevant hashtags.
- Call-To-Action: Call-to-action buttons are one of the most extremely important features on Instagram. Not only this will help you to sell and promote your products, but also establish interaction with your potential customers. You can buy Instagram comments to improve your interaction ratio.
Conclusion
Instagram not only attracts the attention of the users by the shopping feature, but the algorithm also convinces them to make a purchase. Some people think of Instagram shopping as a competitor of the other traditional and digital marketing options. As the reach of the platform is very high, it gives a chance to both small and large companies to promote their business.
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