Instagram Checkout: How to Leverage this Feature as an eCommerce

Yesterday, Instagram stepped up its game by announcing that they’re launching, an in-app checkout service for all businesses (for a fee). The checkout facility will allow users to store their payment info, to make the experience quick and easy, it also tracks your delivery and sends you updates of about what you have bought.

This is a big step for Instagram, and certainly the right one, in order to reach their goal of becoming a full-fledged e-commerce business.

Now, you may be thinking, hold on a minute, you can already shop on Instagram? And you wouldn’t be wrong! However, currently when shopping on the app, when you go to pay the user is redirected to the website of the retailer in the form of a pop-up!

Now what Instagram was noticing from their analytics is that users would tend to get frustrated with the pop-up and abandon their basket – no completing the purchase. So, the new in-app feature aims to be easier, quicker and encourages people to shop more.

Instagram shopping is predicted to become BIG BUSINESS, with 130 million users clicking on shopping tags in ONE MONTH, this is only the start of something HUGE.

What can you expect from this new application:

As I’m sure you can imagine not all brands will be using the checkout feature straight away, however these big brands will be the lucky few to use ‘checkout’ at the start: Michael Kors, Oscar de la Renta, Prada, Nike, Adidas, Dior, H&M, MAC Cosmetics, Uniqlo, Warby Parker, and Zara.

To spot what you can purchase, each brand will have a checkout sign and each product has below a big blue ‘checkout on Instagram’ button you click on, put in your email and press pay (if you have your payment details already saved) it’s as easy, as that.

Sounds dangerous, doesn’t it…