Instagram is changing our shopping habits: Features and Updates!

Instagram is changing our shopping habits.

How many times did you browse on your newsfeed and see a very relevant advertisement? No doubt, Instagram has made our browsing journey personalized enough to drive us to purchase, and then to checkout immediately right in the platform.

So how could they completely change the way we shop in the last few years? Let’s walk through all recent added features from Instagram in this article to find out.

Table of Contents

Why did Instagram decide to develop Shopping features?

Firstly, check out these insights from Facebook IQ:

Instagram has the highest engagement rates above others

With over 130 million people reaching shoppable posts monthly, Instagram surely has the highest engagement rate compared to other platforms, even Facebook.

With the growth of social media interactions since the pandemic happened, there is no reason not to shift businesses to online for more sales.

Not only that, Instagram has proved that they’re investing a lot in the e-commerce side and will be releasing even more shopping features to support that. Holding a big database of users, the platform is definitely a potential marketplace for all-sizes businesses to increase their customer’s list.

“No longer a square photo-sharing platform”

Said the founder of Instagram. Nowadays, it’s really easy for anyone to make a purchase throughout the platform.

Businesses can boost more online revenue.

Everybody loves seeing more media content whenever they want to buy something, which makes Instagram a perfect spot to visually showcase any item for sales.

More features will be released to support e-commerce

Indeed, there are plenty of ways to do that, because they’ve been releasing features to make your post stand out in a crowd:

Not just stop there, they’re even planning to develop more functions in the near future.

Customers can shop directly to what they see.

Not only businesses, but customer shopping experiences are also being taken care of on Instagram. That’s how Instagram is changing shopping habits.

Lots of people said that they prefer buying things from Instagram posts and stories more than Facebook posts. And undoubtedly Instagram is the leader when it comes to creating shopping personalization.

Visual shopping can describe products better than words.
Customers can shop to what they see, without going anywhere.
Seamless checkout allows us to pay money faster than ever.
Creators’ looks inspire people more than just product images.

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A post shared by Instagram for Business (@instagramforbusiness)

Step by step, Instagram has geared up their shopping quality to convert every desire into purchase, which helps even the smallest businesses make money during hard periods.

How Instagram is changing our shopping habits

#1. Appropriated And Personalized Algorithms

Thanks to the new Instagram algorithm, people are now spending more time browsing on newsfeed. It’s a long time ago when we couldn’t find any relevant posts to see, now they’ve made the feed personalized and tailored to each user.

Instagram product leader Gutman revealed the algorithm

Following that, to make sure every feed is unique, Instagram will display content based on these factors:

Interest: What type of content you’ve interacted with in the past. Any like, share, comment, view or any related behavior will affect your upcoming feed display.
Timeliness: To guarantee your best browsing experience with most related posts, the algorithm will analyze how recently you engaged with a content, or posted something.

Relationship: The account that posts the content must be close and related to you. The more you interact with someone’s content in the past, the higher chance for their posts to appear on your top places.

Frequency: If you’re not a regular visitor, your feed will be customized with posts that Instagram thinks you might like most. This is to ensure keeping your attention as long as possible to the app.

Following: The more you follow, the more referrals for Instagram to sort out your most relevant feed posts. However, make sure that you won’t follow too many ghost accounts because it might affect the algorithm.
Usage: Once Instagram finds out how much time you spent on either the platform and posts, they’ll make sure to sort out new content so you won’t feel bored. Therefore you’ll see posts from new accounts and topics related to your interacting behavior.

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A post shared by Instagram’s @Creators (@creators)

#2. Lively Visual Feed Brings The Best Shopping Experience

With many forms of showing media content, Instagram is a place where businesses can describe products most effectively.

In the upcoming time, Facebook is planning to strengthen Visual Shopping across their family of apps with image search, which proves how much they care about e-commerce visual merchandising.

Visual search is considered the future of e-commerce

You can either post product photos in bulk, or film a video to deliver more information. Furthermore, starting a Live product demo or collaborating with creators could also attract a huge amount of engagement to your brands.

#3. Support All-Sizes Businesses

The Facebook ecosystem with billions of potential customers is a great place to market any product type. Whether you’re selling clothes, cosmetics or even virtual courses, there are always relevant audiences for you.

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A post shared by Adam Mosseri (@mosseri)

Together with a professional insight dashboard, small brands will still be able to analyze post performance and reach their native target audiences.

“We want to make it as easy as possible to support amazing small businesses right now.”

Said by Adam Mosseri, so no matter what type of business you’re doing, Instagram is a worthwhile marketplace.

#4. Creators Are The Key Factor In Instagram’s Growth Plan

Since Instagram has a strong visual newsfeed, it’s definitely a holy birthplace of all-levels influencers.

Recently, Shopping from Creators has been tested out in a few countries and soon to be released worldwide.

Using this feature, creators can showcase their ‘social profile’ to attract branded collaboration, share insights and make money based on their reputation.

Creators can search and build partnerships with relevant brands

For businesses who are looking for a way to attract authentic engagements and sales, working with Instagram creators is never a bad choice.

#5. Suitable To Quarantine Life

People love visual content, because it allows them to “virtually” try on items even in social distancing.

Compared to other e-commerce platforms, Instagram might be considered as the leader in providing visual shopping experiences.

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A post shared by Kylie Cosmetics (@kyliecosmetics)

Right in the platforms, you can basically shop directly to any media content possible. From IGTV, Live, to shoppable Stories, Reels and Posts, Instagram has created a lively visual ecosystem that can please even the hardest customers.

In a nutshell

Social media commerce is expanding strongly around the world, and even Instagram is somehow changing our shopping habits.

So if you’re planning to grow your brand on social media, then now is your perfect time to try out Instagram’s latest e-commerce features.