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New Instagram Payments: Can Shoppers Purchase Items In-App?

By Tinuiti Team

Today, Instagram is one of the leading platforms to build brand awareness across 500 million active users.

According to a recent article by Ronit Epstein, Marketing Communications Manager (Yotpo):

“Of all the social channels, traffic to eCommerce stores from Instagram stay longest onsite, making them the most likely to convert from followers into customers. Moreover, Instagram users are highly likely to make purchasing decisions based on their experiences on the platform.”

 

Credit: Yotpo

 

In an extensive study by Yotpo regarding how to sell on Instagram, 72% of customers said seeing Instagram photos of a product increases their chances of buying, and 38% of customers said they frequently purchase products they find on Instagram.

 

SLATE + SALT fair trade instagram page

Although this presents a valuable opportunity to boost site traffic and revenue through Instagram, historically – there’s always been one very obvious obstacle: Instagram bans URLs except in a user’s bio.

According to Epstein, “This makes shopping through an Instagram feed seemingly cumbersome, requiring potential customers to close your Instagram and go searching on your site for something they liked.”

Until recently, the only way for customers to shop from the platform has been through “Shoppable Instagram“, a shop gallery, which is a parallel site linked in the Instagram bio section.

 

Credit: Yotpo

Introducing Instagram Payments

Now, thanks to the recent introduction of “Instagram Payments“, users browsing their favorite feeds will now have the opportunity to purchase directly through Instagram without having to leave the platform.

instagram payments

According to an article by TechCrunch:

[Instagram payments] let you register a debit or credit card as part of a profile, set up a security pin, then start buying things without ever leaving Instagram. Not having to leave for a separate website and enter payment information any time you want to purchase something could make Instagram a much bigger player in commerce.

As seen in the screenshots below, it appears Instagram has already started to roll out the payment option within User Settings:

 

As of today, the native payments option is only available to a limited set of partners and businesses.

Currently, it looks like users are able to book services such as Resy, a dinner reservation app –  but what about apparel and products?

Unfortunately, we do not know when or if users will be able to purchase items (aka apparel or products) using Instagram Payments, yet.

CPC Strategy reached out to our Facebook Representative, who said:

The feature is being discussed internally and our Product Team is exploring potentially allowing customers to buy products in-app in the future, but there’s no set ETA on when this will launch.

For more information on Instagram Payments, email [email protected]

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