Social media platform Instagram has taken yet another step towards “seamless” shopping, launching two new features it says will provide consumers worldwide with an easier way to shop online.
Instagram started testing the new ‘Shopping in Stories’ feature in June in the UK and is now rolling it out globally and expanding it to businesses in 46 countries.
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The feature allows users to view and buy products directly through the photo-sharing app, streamlining the online shopping process by removing the need to search a brand’s website for the desired product and its price.
Similar to the ‘Shopping in the UK’ feature, which was launched in March of this year, businesses are able to tag products in their Stories with a shopping bag icon that, when tapped, provides more details about that particular product.
In addition, Instagram has also introducing Shopping in Explore, a channel that will be personalised to each user.
Topic channels, which launched in June, allow you to browse across your interests and go deeper on any area you like in Explore. Now, when you simply want to shop for fun, you’ll see a channel dedicated to Shopping posts from the brands you follow and brands you might like.
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By GlobalDataThe Shopping channel in Explore was rolled out yesterday (17 September) and will expand globally over the coming weeks.
Launched seven years ago, Instagram is home to a global community of over 800m, including 25m businesses and 2m advertisers. In the UK, Instagram boasts some 23m users.
The platform first detailed its plans to streamline shopping in November of last year and says more than 90m accounts now tap to reveal tags in shopping posts on Instagram every month.
