Instagram Shopping deploys in eight countries outside the USA

By

Sarah Ahssen

Translated by
Nicola Mira

Published
Mar 20, 2018

One year after the US launch, Instagram Shopping is deploying in France, the UK, Canada, Germany, Spain, Italy, Australia and Brazil on Tuesday 20th March. The new functionality allows brands with a business account on Instagram to tag up to five products within a single picture (20 on a slide show). Users who click on the tag will land first on another Instagram page with the product's description, price and other information, and then will be able to click on a link taking them to the brand's e-store.

"Instagram Shopping is designed to improve the users' experience, giving them more time to gather information on products," said Julie Pellet, Instagram's Brand Development Lead in Southern Europe. The 'Shop' tab on a brand's Instagram accounts also gives consumers the possibility of accessing all of the brand's tagged products in a single click.

Above all, with the Shopping function, Instagram has a powerful tool at its disposal to convince brands to open a business account, by offering a functionality designed to direct more traffic towards their websites. Previously, this was only possible via a link in the brand bio space on Instagram. "Instagram Shopping is complementary to an advertising strategy," said Julie Pellet, who underlined how Instagram's business model is based on advertising revenue. The social media app currently claims 2 million advertisers.

"Our customers need information on the products we're launching, and with Instagram Stories [which lists the pictures and videos posted on an account for a designated period of time] we already give an advance preview of our plans, so customers know that buying on Instagram is possible. But Instagram Shopping will also allow us to devise new content," said Julianne Clamens, Senior Brand Content and Social Manager at Birchbox, the US specialist in subscription beauty kits.

So far Instagram, Birchbox and Sephora, which already tested the service in the USA, have not disclosed the initial results of Instagram Shopping, notably the purchasing rate it generates.