Rumours that Instagram was going to do more with e-commerce have been bubbling for a while. Yesterday, the Facebook subsidiary revealed its latest moves.
“Today, we’re introducing checkout on Instagram. When you find a product you love, you can now buy it without leaving the app,” explained Instagram.
For now, this is based around products seen in posts from specific brands: Adidas, Burberry, Dior, H&M, Nike, Kylie Cosmetics, Prada and Uniqlo are among the 23 launch-brands listed in Instagram’s announcement. And the new shopping feature is only available in the US for now.
“When you tap to view a product from a brand’s shopping post, you’ll see a Checkout on Instagram’ button on the product page. Tap it to select from various options such as size or color, then you’ll proceed to payment without leaving Instagram. You’ll only need to enter your name, email, billing information and shipping address the first time you check out,” explained the company.
What Music Ally is keen to know, though, is when the checkout feature might be expanded to music merchandise – although as we’ve noted before, artists can already sell merch through links in their own Instagram stories – something Instagram has been encouraging artists to do. “We’re telling them about things like the success of using links in stories, and how much traffic that’s driving for other artists to purchase music, or streams, merch, live tickets,” its head of music, Lauren Wirtzer Seawood, told Music Ally in March 2018. “Those links in stories are generating a ton of offline traffic for a lot of artists… they’re seeing huge results.”
Tools: platforms to help you reach new audiences
Tools: Kaiber
In the year or so since its launch, AI startup Kaiber has been making waves,…