All Instagram Shopping Features Shops Need to Know (Including the New Checkout Update)

May 14, 2019

Instagram shopping has been around for a couple years now, and it’s been proven to boost traffic and sales of thousands of brands. If you’re new to Instagram or you just now want to get into promoting your products as shoppable posts, we’re going to cover what every shopping feature is and how they work. 

 

Down below, we’ll share a link from Facebook Business that will tell you exactly how to set up Instagram shopping, if you’re interested. 

 

 

Shopping through Posts

When there is a “shoppable” post on Instagram, an icon of a shopping bag is shown on the top right corner. When you click the post, on the bottom left corner is an option that reads, “Tap to view products.” 

On the picture itself, there are white circles that appear on the products being sold, as you can see on the picture above.

After a few moments, both options disappear, but if you click the picture again, you’ll see more details of the products, also shown in the picture. You’ll see the name of the product and the price. 

When those tag-like options appear, you can tap them. From there you’re taken to a page where you can see the product individually, and the price. Under the picture there’s an option that says, “View on website,” and you’re taken directly to the product on the website when you click it. 

 

If you scroll down, you will see the following:

1. Posts with this item

These are other Instagram posts from the user that includes the item you’re viewing.

 

2. Featured together

Items the product is featured together with on Instagram.

3. More ‘username’ posts

Here you’ll only see shoppable posts.

 

4. More from this shop

Under this section, you’ll see just the items this brand is selling, instead of entire Instagram posts.

 

 

Shopping through Stories

Instagram brought shopping to Instagram stories in June of 2018 as a beta test, but in September, they released this feature to the public—or rather, to all brands whose Instagram’s are approved for the shopping feature. Shopping through Instagram stories works the same way as shopping through posts.

 

For Instagram stories, you can tag products with stickers—which, we all know is what makes Instagram stories so fun and unique.

 

According to the Instagram Business page, “Businesses... will now be able to add one product sticker to any story with customizable text color. When a shopper taps on a product sticker, they'll be taken to the same product details page that they see when they tap on a shopping post in feed.”

 

Shopify shared, when this feature was released, that despite Instagram stories vanishing after 24 hours they, “present a tremendous opportunity to creatively showcase your products, and with over 400 million daily active users and growing, the potential for engagement is high.”

 

Despite being able to shop on Instagram, you couldn’t shop directly from it. Like we’ve said, you could view items and be directed to the brand’s website, but you couldn’t buy from the app. However, this month, Instagram released the Checkout feature.

 

 

The new Checkout feature

Instagram’s tagline for the new Checkout option, which was released March 19, 2019, is “Buy From Brand’s Without Leaving Instagram.”

 

You can now buy directly from the app instead of being directed to the shop’s website or shop. Once this feature is rolled out to all shops—we’ll talk about this more down below—it will likely have an even bigger impact on traffic and sales then shoppable posts have already had. 

 

How to use this feature:

  1. Go to a brand’s shopping post
     
  2. Tap the item you’re interested in (Here you’re taken to the item as usual, to see details)
     
  3. You’ll now see a ‘color’ and ‘size’ option. Select each.
     
  4. Click the blue button that reads, ‘Checkout on Instagram’
     
  5. Fill out your name, email, billing information, and shipping address (You’re information will be saved for easy access next time you shop)
     
  6. Select ‘Place order’ at the bottom

 

From there, you will be taken to a confirmation page that reads, “An email confirming your [shop] order will be sent to [email protected].” Instagram will also send you notifications when your order has been shipped and when it has been delivered. 

 

The Instagram Info Center—in this article they posted announcing the new Checkout feature (you can also watch the video in which they did so here)—wrote, “Checkout on Instagram is currently in closed beta for businesses and available to people in the US. The brands below will begin rolling out today and over the coming weeks—and more will be coming soon!

 

 

Extra shopping features:

1. Instagram has a Shopping channel available on the Explore page

When you click this option, you’ll see only shoppable posts. The posts that you see are based off of other products you’ve viewed from the same shop and related items you might like based on what you’ve viewed.

 

2. You can save products themselves

The “save” icon lets you save Instagram pictures. (The save icon is the little bookmark on the bottom right corner of posts on your feed.) When you click it, they’re saved to a default folder called ‘collections.’

 

However, when you click the product details, like we talked about, of a shoppable post, there’s a ‘save’ icon under the item itself, too. When you save that, the product is directly saved to a ‘shopping’ folder, which makes the shopping experience easier and faster. 

 

That’s it! Everything you need to know about the shopping feature.

 

If you’re interested in setting up the shopping feature for your Instagram accounts, you can check out this article—How to Set Up Shopping on Instagram, which covers every step you must take in order to be approved.

 

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