The last few years have seen Instagram undergoing a phenomenal evolution from being a just picture-sharing platform to an ultimate destination for shopping and e-commerce.
An increasing number of businesses are making a shift from simply having a social presence to leveraging the platform to generate sales and profits for their business.
One of the more recent innovations that helps businesses with this is shoppable Instagram, which enables them to create social content and sales at the same time.
Instagram shoppable posts have been shown to boost website traffic by around 1,416%, according to research. This feature also enables you to contact your audiences directly so they can take action.
This post aims to explore more about the Instagram shopping feature, along with outlining the process you can use to transform your Insta feed into a storefront with shoppable posts.
Instagram Shopping: How Does It Work?
Shopping on Instagram is an eCommerce section placed within the social media network of Instagram. It offers an excellent way for businesses to showcase their product catalog and reach new customers on Instagram. It helps you effectively engage your followers and allows them to buy these products from your online shop in a few simple steps.
Shopping on Instagram feature enables you to tag up to five products per image or up to twenty products per carousel and allows your users/ followers to buy these products from your online shop with a simple tap.
The best part here is that the tagged product has all the relevant information and pricing, thus making shopping on Instagram an easy and quick solution for businesses’ mobile shops.
Businesses and brands with Instagram shopping features can also get the benefit of being featured on the Instagram Shop tab, which is a shopping destination that users can access from Instagram’s main navigation menu.
Benefits of Marketing through Instagram
There are several benefits of marketing through Instagram and leveraging the shoppable feed feature on Instagram. Some of these are listed below:
1. Seamless Shopping Experience
Instagram Shoppable Feed allows you to tag products directly in your IG posts and stories, thus offering a seamless shopping experience for your audience.
Users can easily tap on the tagged products to view all details and prices and even purchase without leaving the app. This kind of smooth user experience and convenience helps increase conversion rates to a great extent.
2. Easier Product Discovery
Instagram Shop is a great feature that allows you to showcase your products more organically to consumers’ feeds. This leads to improved and seamless product discovery as users conveniently come across your products simply while browsing, even if they weren’t searching for them very actively.
3. Authentic Advertising
An increasing number of consumers these days trust user-generated content for making their online purchase decisions. The Instagram shop allows you to build a more trustworthy and authentic shopping environment by integrating all relevant UGC posts with shoppable tags.
It also helps in offering a more realistic picture of the products, their aesthetic details, reviews, and more.
4. Increased Engagement and Sales
One of the other benefits of Instagram shops is increased user engagement and sales. Since every brand’s marketing strategy is primarily aimed towards growing sales & revenue, converting Instagram posts into shoppable feeds can help your users convert their intention to purchase into action instantly.
5. Better Collaboration Opportunities
Instagram shop also give companies an excellent opportunity to leverage better partnerships with influencers and other brands to reach a wider audience and harness the power of collaboration.
Further, product tags and detailed information on every single product can help businesses generate more trust among users, as they have complete access to specific product data before they buy.
6. Simplified Shopping Process
Instagram shopping feature allows you to bring your storefront directly to the customer, thus streamlining and simplifying the overall shopping process. This will remove the hassle of online shoppers hopping from one link to another just to find your product. Now, with a few simple clicks, there are high chances of converting the intention to buy into an actual purchase.
Prerequisites to Get the Instagram Shopping Feature
Here are some of the prerequisites that businesses need to get approved for the Instagram shopping feature-
- Businesses must be located in a market that supports Instagram Shopping. Not all regions may have access to this feature, so checking the availability in your location is crucial.
- The business must adhere to Instagram’s merchant agreement and commerce policies. This includes selling physical and eligible products. It’s important to review and ensure that your products align with Instagram’s guidelines.
- You need to have a proper business profile on Instagram. You can also change your account to a business one by changing the settings.
- Connect your business on Instagram to a Facebook Page. This linkage is essential for a seamless integration with Instagram Shopping. Ensure that your Facebook Page is properly set up and represents your business accurately.
How to Get the Instagram Shopping Feature?
As Instagram Shopping feature is part of the business side of Instagram. Here are some of the quick steps you can follow to get the Instagram shopping feature
1. Switch to a Business or Creator Account
Apart from being free to get, Business (or Creator) accounts on Instagram qualify you for Instagram Shopping features. Changing to a business account also gives you access to exciting analytics.
You can do this by following below steps-
- Go to settings, then account
- Once done, select ‘switch to a professional account.’
- Select business (here you also have the option to link this to any Facebook account associated with your business)
- The last step here is to add all your details, including the category and contact information for your business
Once you are done with setting up your business account, you will get access to all of Instagram’s professional tools, including Instagram Shopping and Instagram Insights.
2. Use Commerce Manager to Set up an Instagram Shop and Add Your Product Catalog
When creating your online shop on Instagram, you’ll need to have a proper catalog with all product descriptions. You can do it in two different ways, which are either by using the Commerce Manager tool found within Facebook Business Manager or by using an e-commerce platform manager, such as Shopify or BigCommerce.
Once done, you’ve to create your product catalog, submit your account for review, and wait for approval.
After the account has been approved, you can turn on the shopping feature on the platform to allow customers to start shopping from your Instagram posts.
3. Product Tagging
After your catalog setup is done, you can start tagging your products in your Instagram posts or stories. The platform will review your account to ensure it meets all its criteria before allowing product tagging.
4. Enable Checkout
If you wish to enable Instagram Checkout, you’ll be required to go through a separate review process and set up payment and shipping details.
5. Publish Shoppable Posts
Once approved, you can start publishing Instagram shoppable posts and stories on Instagram, thus allowing users to discover and purchase your products.
Integration of Shoppable Instagram Feeds
One of the advantages of a Shoppable Instagram feed is that it seamlessly integrates with your Shopify store, thus ensuring that product information, details, and inventory of your business are always up to date.
Further, as users engage with shoppable posts, it also helps to increase the brand’s visibility on Instagram and attract new followers and customers.
Apart from this, businesses can also gather valuable data and deeper insights about popular products and how users interact with their shoppable content for better marketing strategies and interesting product offerings.
Conclusion
The rising popularity of Instagram has made Instagram’s shopping feature an excellent place to get your brand/products noticed, and the trend is likely to continue in the future as well.
In this post, we have discussed everything that you need to know about converting your Insta feed into a storefront with shoppable posts. By using the tips shared above, you can refine your Instagram Shopping feed so that your store and its products continue to be competitive on the platform.
Additionally, you can also use Predis.ai, an AI-powered content generation tool, to seamlessly connect your Instagram to the Shopify store and get the maximum out of the Instagram shopping feature. Contact us for more details!
Plan your Instagram Feed online to see how your feed will look like with Predis.ai’s Free Instagram Feed Planner.
