Imagine sitting on the sofa, scrolling through Instagram when suddenly you see it! Your eyes light up, your heart quickens, you have to have it.
Good news, there’s a product tag. Boom - within a few clicks The Jumper Of Dreams is yours and is winging its way to your home.
Now, just imagine if it was that easy for customers to buy your products from you!
It is.
Instagram Shops makes it super simple for product-based e-comm businesses like yours to sell online, and it doesn’t cost a penny.
And, with more than 500 million potential global customers at your fingertips, there’s never been a better time to get in on the act!
Here’s what you need to know:
- You can only sell physical products in your shop
- You can’t sell services, downloads or digital products
- In-app check-out is currently only available to US sellers
- UK shops need to be linked to a website or Shopify to check-out
- You need a Business or Creator account to set up a shop
- Your Instagram account needs to be connected to a Facebook business page
How to set up your Instagram shop
To open an Instagram shop head to business.facebook.com/products and select Add Catalogue.
You’ll be taken through a simple process with the option to either link your products directly to an eCommerce platform – such as Shopify or BigCommerce (you may need help from your web developer to do this) – or to manually upload them yourself.
Once done - and approved by Instagram - you’ll need to activate your shop via your Instagram settings.
Where to find and use Instagram shops
On content
Shopping tags can be added to all of the app’s features - Grid posts, Stories, Highlights, video, Lives, IGTV, Guides and Reels.
You can add up to five tags to an image post but a sneaky way to increase this is to create a carousel of images and add five products to each.
Bottom of the home screen
The shopping tag at the bottom of your home screen (next to your mini profile picture) takes you to a selection of shops based on your viewing preferences.
Top of a profile page
The shopping tag at the top of a brand’s profile page takes you to their entire shop
Ads (kinda)
Although you can’t use product tags in Instagram ads yet, you can promote existing shopping posts through your Ads Manager. You can also create audiences based on customers who have engaged with your shop.
Instagram Shop tips for success:
- Space out product tags – bunched up tags are hard to read
- Use tags every time you feature a product
- Check your tags link to the right product!
- Use descriptive hashtags in your captions so your products are searchable e.g. #greenjumper #leopardprintmakeupbag
- Don’t worry if traditional engagement (likes / comments) drops on product posts - the aim is to get people to buy!
How to measure what’s working
The analytics within Commerce Manager includes lots of valuable information such as audience demographics, product page views, which are the top products, sales figures and how your shop is being discovered.
Make sure you review these insights regularly so you can build a picture of what’s working.
Ready to set up shop?
If you’d like help setting up your Instagram shop here’s how I can help you: