Today, Instagram announced it is expanding access to Instagram Shopping to more types of businesses, including creators that want to connect with shoppers and sell their merchandise on Instagram. The social media platform said in a statement that its new commerce eligibility requirements will help more creators sell on the platform.
Any eligible business or creator account with at least one eligible product can use shopping tags to drive people to their website to make a purchase.
As of 9 July, all countries where Instagram Shopping is supported will be able to access the new requirements.
With this new policy, businesses must tag products on Instagram from a single website that they own and sell from, increasing trust and transparency for shoppers. They are also updating the sign-up flow to give clearer guidance to businesses and offer more transparency into the creators who want to grow their business on Instagram.
“This change is great for e-commerce retail brands that want to sell their products via their owned and operated profiles as well as for influencers who have an e-commerce site (selling only products on their personal site),” said Jeff Duque, vice president at Studio at H Code.
Businesses that sign up for Instagram Shopping will be notified as soon as they are approved and will go through an updated onboarding process. Existing businesses will get an in-app notification in the coming weeks about how to come into compliance.
“The store potentially allows influencers to build a revenue base outside of sponsored #ad. The problem is likely not one of the shopping features, but the fact that Instagram still limits how many of one’s followers actually sees the content. This makes someone still need to spend money to promote something like a store,” commented Claude Zdanow, founder and CEO of Stadiumred Group.
“So, contrary to a Shopify store where you can send an email to all your customers, Instagram’s nature is to get you to spend money, so it will be interesting to see how they address that for the long-term viability of the store function. E-commerce stores function best when you can get repeat customers and market to your existing ones. How Instagram addresses that will be key.”
