From time to time, team members will share their views stimulated by content from an industry thought leader or news article. Here, our Project Manager, Irina Boudreau, discusses the recent e-commerce developments on the ever-popular Instagram social platform. The original article, “Instagram unveils curated @shop account to showcase online merchants”, was written by Rober Williams for RetailDive.
Over the past year, Instagram has taken several steps toward becoming a driving e-commerce market place. The Explore tab now has a dedicated shopping channel; the Collection tab allows users to save products from Stories, posts, and videos. There’s a Shop tab on business pages which showcase a brand’s merchandise. It’s most recent addition is the @shop account which uses curated shopping content to highlight the emerging brands.
And it makes a lot of sense. Instagram has a tremendous reach of 1 BILLION users. This is a huge pool of buyers who are actively engaged and ready to take action. Social platforms are becoming the preferred way to shop. According to Episerver survey, 63% of user clicked on social media ads, and of those who clicked 33% made a direct purchase. Nearly the same numbers are true for users who clicked on influencer’s post and then made a purchase.
The potential for merchants is huge. Brands, like Adidas, already saw a 40% increase in online sales in the first quarter of 2019 in large part due to Instagram’s direct sales.
Brands, especially undiscovered merchants, need to embrace this change and take full advantage of the power of social media.
