The world’s most popular social media platform plans to become more than a place to share and like photos.
In today’s time when the majority of the young population begins and ends their day with Instagram – which has become a newspaper that you read daily – it did not come as a surprise when Mark Zuckerberg announced in January that he’s looking forward to introducing shopping via Instagram in 2019. A few weeks ago, Instagram introduced its in-app shopping with brands like Adidas, Burberry, Zara and many more thereby pocketing a multi-billion-dollar business almost overnight.
Come this May, Instagram plans to take this one step forward by allowing its users to buy what their favourite influencers are wearing with maximum ease. A recent Instagram survey states that nearly 70 per cent of its one billion users log in to Instagram to share, like or comment on photos of celebrities. This indicates that nearly three fourths of their users will now be able to purchase apparel directly via Instagram.
‘Instagram Checkout’, launched in March with a few above-mentioned brands, will be giving access to 50 influencers (Aimee Song, Chiara Ferragni, Kylie Jenner), designers and media titles (Hypebeast, Vogue) starting May 9. These 50 new entrants will be pre-approved by the brands before they’re able to link the products to themselves.
With ‘Checkout’, the app will add a selling fee to fund programs and products that help make checkout possible. This means that Instagram is making the merchants pay the fee in exchange for higher purchase conversion rates instead of making the users pay.
Instagram is all set to take over the retail market but is it going to make a remarkable change in the industry?
Brands and retailers continuously post on the app, at most 20 times in stories. But even with this constant uploading, for a big brand majority of their inventory is still hidden, and for a small brand all their inventory comes on display. Instagram has played a major role in pulling in consumers to the platform of these brands but with ‘Checkout’, consumers will now buy on the app without visiting the brand’s website. Being the parent company, Facebook controls all the ads and interaction of the brands with the consumers. With ‘Checkout’, consumers will be building relations with Instagram, and not the brand itself.
Instagram is all set to make this feature a mainstream concept and earn billions off it. But is it ground-breaking? And is it even needed in the first place? Only time will tell whether ‘Instagram Checkout’ will take a great flight or go up in smoke.
Photos: Instagram Press
Comentários