Instagram Goes Full Ecommerce
The future of solo, non-platform ecommerce companies would be challenging. Instagram is now a full ecommerce company. Yes, you can buy stuffs right as you read stories. There is no more distinction. Simply, if you are reading about a specific belt, you can see a tag to buy one right in that story, on Instagram. This evolution explains the key challenge for ecommerce websites: you would have to offer real reason for people to come there, leaving where they have already made homes, especially now the homes deliver what you offer. Facebook Corp will surely put same shop tags on Facebook and WhatsApp very soon now that Instagram is a shopville.
Instagram’s shoppable tags are about to pop up in Stories. The company started testing the feature back in 2016 with a limited set of 20 partners. Since then it’s been a hit, expanding broadly to regular brand posts in the feed. Starting today, hitting a little shopping bag sticker in a Story will lead you to more details on the cute and/or dope thing that caught your eye and how to score it.
It’s a simple addition, but given the success of Stories it’s a potent one for brands that drive sales on the platform.
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Maybe it's time to pop up another regulation: restraining social platforms from turning themselves into ecommerce domains.
Except you offer unique products that are unavailable elsewhere, I do not see how ecommerce firms can compete with these monsters; it's not even a question of being innovative, the starting point for the race (a sprint) is 1000 miles apart.
I noticed the features in my Instagram account. This is serious!
