Ahead of the launch of a standalone shopping app, Instagram has introduced even more opportunities for e-commerce on the platform with the announcement of adding a shopping tab to the Explore page.
The Explore page, which allows users to discover and browse content grouped via interests, will roll out a dedicated shopping channel. Users can tap the shopping channel and flick through a dedicated, personalised feed of shoppable posts from various brands they already follow and ones the algorithm predicts they will also like. The update comes at a time when 90 million users tap on shopping posts to see the product tags, according to Instagram.
Shopping in Stories
Back in June, Instagram began testing shopping in Stories and earlier this week it started rolling it out globally and expanded it to businesses in 46 countries. Sellers can add stickers to their Stories, letting users quickly tap on a product sticker to learn more about the product shown.
Instagram said more than 400 million accounts come to Stories every day and one-third of the most-viewed stories come from businesses. For advertisers, this is yet another way to create meaningful connections with customers and further impact customer engagement and sales growth.
Social shopping
Shopping on Instagram is nothing new – we recently delved into the world of Instagram shopping and the benefits of retail brands using it to maximise e-commerce performance. Shopping via Insta is becoming increasingly popular, with the company stating that “shopping is more than an errand – it’s also about what you discover along the way”.
Following the success of social shopping on the platform, the company is building its standalone app dedicated to shopping. The app launch has yet to be revealed but we are certain users and businesses will take to it. Since introducing shopping to the feed last year, the demand from the channel has increased, so no doubt the new updates will see similar results.