As of this week, Instagram is pushing forward with their next big step, after being trialled in the US for a year, it’s opened up its shoppable doors to ecommerce clients further across the globe including the UK. We are super excited about this new Instagram feature which enables businesses to sell physical products through the social media platform.

The feature is currently for approved for businesses in the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Brazil.

Setting up your shoppable Instagram feature

Firstly, the shoppable feature is only available to businesses if you fulfil the following criteria:

• Your business must sell physical goods that comply with our merchant agreement and commerce policies
• Your business must be located in the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Spain or Brazil
• Your Instagram account must be converted into a business profile
• Your business profile must be connected to a Facebook catalog. This can be created and managed on Business Manager, through Shopify or BigCommerce platforms or directly on your business’s Page on Facebook.

Once you have set up the above, it may take a few days to be reviewed and approved and once this has happened you will receive a notification to be able to turn on product tagging through the settings.

What does this mean for businesses?

This now means that a business can make a post ‘shoppable’ which will allow users to shop  directly by using virtual price tags that are overlaid onto posts. This effectively will allow an Instagram feed to become a shopfront.

How does it works for customers?

A customer will be aware that a post is shoppable by seeing the shopping bag icon and when they scroll through a feed or they will see a ‘Tap to view products’ pop up button which is clickable. Also, if you are looking through an account feed, you will notice the white shopping bag icon on shoppable products.

When a user clicks on the shopping bag icon, pop-ups will appear with product details, i.e. product name and price. When a user clicks on one of the product details, they will be greeted with a larger image of the product and will be able to see more information about the product. They will also have the opportunity to ‘shop now’ which will direct them to shopping cart and check out.

This process should be seamless and very easy for a client to follow. Once they go to the checkout, they will be directed away from Instagram and onto your website to complete the transaction.

In US where the trial has been taking place, the shoppable posts have become really popular. We look forward to what this is going to do the UK Instagram market and how we can use this to grow a business profile.

“People come to Instagram every day to discover and buy products from their favorite businesses. Whether it’s a local artisan, florist or clothing store, shopping directly on Instagram has never been easier.” – Jim Squires, Instagram’s global head of business.

If you’re a shoppable brand and would like to know more about how the new Instagram feature how it will benefit and grow your business, we’d love to chat with you. Get in touch!