The popular social media app is rolling out a new feature for Canada
By Katrina Caruso
Online shoppers and social media lovers, rejoice! Instagram has announced that businesses can now tag their products for sale in a post on the social media app, so that users can tap on the item to buy it, learn about pricing, or get product details.
A new feature allows businesses to add a tab to their accounts specifically for shopping. Product names can be tagged the way that personal accounts can tag their friends or themselves in photographs.
It will make shopping through the Instagram feed much easier—but also more tempting, as users can do their shopping directly through the app rather than going to businesses’ online stores. The experience will be simpler and more seamless, making it unnecessary to go between the Web and the app to grab the product’s name or to have to search online to find the right webpage.
The feature was rolled out in the United States in March 2017, and brands such as Kate Spade and J. Crew tested the feature. Now users in Canada, along with those in Australia, Brazil, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Italy, and the UK, can shop directly from their Instagram accounts.
Some 200 million people visit business accounts on Instagram each day, but only a third of users actually follow the companies they search for. With this new feature, perhaps more users will choose to follow the brands and businesses that they like.
This may be great news for smaller companies, local artisans, and artists, who often rely on sites like Etsy to sell their waress.
Photo: iStock/pressureUA.
