Instagram Shopping Business expanded to stories

Instagram is bringing its successful shopping feature to Instagram Stories.

Of the 500 million daily users of Instagram, over 300 million use Instagram Stories everyday, which is a significant consumer base for retailers to push into.

“Brands have always been early adopters of stories, they create some of the most viewed and engaging content on the platform,” reads Instagram’s press release announcing the feature.

“From Adidas and Aritzia to Louis Vuitton, people have been able to shop from their favorite brands around the world, and now you can shop these businesses in Instagram Stories.”

According to Facebook IQ research, “more than one in three self-reported daily active Instagrammers surveyed… said they have become more invested in a brand or product after seeing it on Instagram Stories.”

The feature will work much like the current Shopping feature in that a shopping bag icon will appear over products that can be purchased.

Clicking on the icon will give you more information about the product, which includes a link to an e-commerce platform where the product can be purchased.

The coming Instapocalypse

The move comes less than three months after the Instagram Shopping feature was initially launched in Australia, which Showpo’s chief marketing officer Mark Baartse sees as an intention to monetize the platform.

“If you look at the sponsored tags and the shopping in photos, and now in stories, these are organic and they’re given away for free,” he said.

“What we’re almost certainly going to see [is what] we saw with Facebook several years ago.

“Organic reach was broad, and then it got narrower and narrower, where now organic reach is effectively zero.

“Businesses are getting massive reach on Instagram, and influencers are taking often large sums of money which Facebook and Instagram doesn’t see any revenue from.

“I don’t think they’re going to be happy with that long term, nor are their shareholders.”

Baartse sees a coming ‘Instapocalypse’, when Instagram will make an algorithmic shift to will limit organic reach for business or sponsored posts.

“At some point they’re gonna say ‘well, these sponsored posts are doing to have limited organic reach, and as a result, you need to pay to promote those posts.

“It’s going to be bad news for influencers.”