Ben Tossell

Shopping on Instagram — The new way to shop, from your feed

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Ryan Hoover
This competes head on with Pinterest's investments in buyable pins. Instagram is already driving tremendous ecommerce value but the user experience is awful and none of that $$$ is collected from Instagram directly. Huge opportunity in reducing the friction from discovery to purchase. Nice move.
Mike Ivars
@rrhoover I agree with you Ryan, and it will opens a great opportunity to turn facebook ads on a more powerful tool to drive sales on e-commerce field.
Sumeet Shah
@rrhoover This is a MAJOR move if Instagram considers building this tool for influencers and bloggers. Big game changer in the fashion tech space which is heavily run by Like to Know It.
David Feng
@rrhoover Also interested in the overall shopping experience for customers through IG. We've been pinging IG over the past few weeks on whether or not they'll be introducing new API endpoints for us to tap into. Agreed... this can drive tremendous ecommerce value even for smaller players with robust IG audience.
Andreas Mitschke
@ivarsmas oh yes, that's gonna be great. The precise audience targeting combined with the immediate, trackable, in-app actions are a great win-win-win. Will also greatly increase the performance tracking of influencer marketing efforts, at least on IG.
Ash Fanning
@rrhoover My understanding is that Instagram resisted direct links because it believed it would reduce the quality of the content created and shared. Will be interesting to see if the content changes....
Amy Roiland
I think this is such a dumb move. This completely changes IG. Its now a shopping app? How annoying. Not to mention this is only for brands and retailers with a lot of $. They wont allow everyone to be tagging and selling on the platform I can guarantee that. Dumb
Ari
@afashionnerd I disagree. Since these things do exist, they now will in a way better way for both parties. And as for only letting big brands in, just like ads, they ended letting all business accounts join.
João Gonçalves
@afashionnerd It's the segregation of the usage of Instagram. They're trying to bring so much use cases for the app that in the end they'll miss the point.
Mike Holford
@afashionnerd I feel like your opinion may be motivated by the fact that this move basically competes directly with your app 'Fashion Tap'? You must have thought it was a great idea if you made it right?
v i ©
@afashionnerd Looks like you need to switch to Business Profile to be able to use this functionality.
Joe Monastiero
@afashionnerd I think IG basically agreed with you, since this really never got off the ground. Take a look at what we launched this past week with SiBi (See It Buy It) and our new Shop Instagram feature. We're an AI-based fashion marketplace that helps people find matches to top trending posts using computer vision tech.
Peter Wallace
Does this mean I can tag products in my Instagram photos.... And make a commission if my friends buy through my post? :)
Amy Roiland
@peter_wallace they will never ever add that. Why would they share the commissions? They don't have to
Sumeet Shah
@afashionnerd @peter_wallace They probably would build the tool for influencers and have commissions lower than normal but play it via volume plays
Tom Johnson
@peter_wallace I was also wondering if they'll open this up to affiliate linking. Bloggers would be all over that.
Joe Monastiero
@peter_wallace Obviously this effort was shelved by Instagram. We just launched V2 of SiBi (See It Buy It) with Shop Instagram functionality built in (also on PH as of yesterday - posts/sibi). We bring influencers and their top trending fashion posts into the app and then use AI to find matching similar items. We have a partnership with Shopify and their 400k merchants, checkout is in the app. iOS and Android.
Ari
Wow, i guess goodbye to all 3rd party shoppable Instagram tools...
Amy Roiland
@ariaitch I feel like IG is about to delete link in bio so those 3rd party shoppable tools go bye-bye. They aren't making $$ off of it so it's in their best interest to ban those companies. IG is so big now they just want the $$
William Zhou
@afashionnerd @ariaitch They definitely want the money but it's a much better user experience. Going to a 3rd party shoppable feed just adds another clunky step
Ben Tossell
Expected the shopping experience to be taken care of from Instagram This is what they've come up with 🙌
There was coverage on Recode This is rolling out to a handful of US users first...
Alex Barnes
But I can't actually check-out in app? ugh!
Amy Roiland
@alexbarneshere exactly and this is why they won't be letting everyone tag items to their images. It takes you off of IG, why would they want you to go off of IG? This feature is for bigger brands and retailers who can afford it, expensive. Another add on
Joe Monastiero
@alexbarneshere Take a look at the new version of SiBi (See It Buy It) that we launched last week and here on PH yesterday. We use artificial intelligence to help people find matches to top trending IG posts and checkout in app. Large, millennial-centric apparel marketplace, with Shopify partnership.
Matthieu de Luze
What a smart update 🙀 Can be a great opportunity for companies and of course for Instagram to get a new source of revenues 💰
Amy Roiland
@matthieudeluze they will be charging WAY too much for this. The smaller brands and indie boutiques cannot afford it... HA.
Brody Berson
@afashionnerd and how will you know that? Facebook, the parent company of Instagram, already allows anyone to have a Facebook Page with a Store tab to sell items and they don't take any cut of it...
Matthieu de Luze
@brody_berson you're right. @afashionnerd Even if they were charging, it's still an easier and more user friendly way to sell than the unique profile url or the ads so I can't see any reason not to use it.
JOHN METACREATOR
This makes so much sense... and it's been an oft-requested feature. Brilliant move (finally).
evan
This is a big move, can't wait to try it.
Ram
This is a great move by Instagram, Facebook and Instagram pushed some great updates in the last few weeks. I'm sure this is gonna take the e-commerce to the next stage.
Stefan Ritter
Amazing!!! What a great evolution for Instagram!
Amy Roiland
Also no check out in app? This means people are clicking off of IG.. not staying on. Thats a bad thing as well. I think this is just another add on for those bigger brands and retailers paying for the ads and such. Prob goes hand in hand with the ads they are already doing. This will not be for everyone. Not everyone can make their IG shoppable, no way. They won't do it.
Brand Winnie
Solid move Instagram!
Wilhem Pujar
Game changer.
Nicholas L. Norfolk
It was only a matter of time and I'm shocked they are just now testing this. Maybe people will stop including long links in their posts that I don't remember or pointing me to the "link in their bio." How would active hyperlinks in posts change Instagram? I know editing posts changed my life. Hyperlinks may allow me to die in peace. -NN
Giacomo Lawrance
Interesting idea, I like it! Seems quick and easy.
Jeff Higgins
Pros and cons to this. Depending on the exact way it gets implemented on the user side, it's either going Big Brands with a minimum budget/follower ratio or it turns into a segmented mess of Craigslist ads mixed with pics and boomerangs from your nephews 6th birthday.
Muhamed-Kanapiya

Will be better if such updates will come to kazakhstan much faster than now

Pros:

linking each post to product

Cons:

they still not works in kazakhstan

Denis Petrov
Can somebody help me? witch promotional bot is better? I only used ingramer.com, how bots are different from each other? Do you know good sites to read about it? Is it worth it all?
Bob Shoo
E-commerce is just lovely in all it's shapes and sizes isn't it?! "If you build it...shops will come!" - Instagram
Amy Roiland
@bobkevin nah completely changes IG and what they are: a photo sharing platform. Now its a shopping app? No thanks. Super annoying to me. Seems too cluttered and complicated. More ads more links, lame. I think people will start to walk. They are already walking away from IG. Everyone wants the next best thing... I hope someone creates a new photo sharing platform thats better/ not a shopping app. annoying
Bob Shoo
@afashionnerd i hear you. But IG will always be IG. Timelined photos is what they have going for them and people love that. Product design is their user retainer. What they can do is perhaps flawlessly filter the Commerce content and make it easily accessible.