What you know about Instagram is maybe Instagram stories, posts, reels, IGTV, and Instagram insights, but what you should know about is the new in-app checkout feature. Yes, Instagram made a big announcement regarding the release of their new checkout feature helping eCommerce brands or stores, simplifying the purchasing journey.
With this new in-app checkout method, shoppers will never need to leave the platform or have to log in and enter their payment info multiple times. Everything from interest to sale is handled within the realm of Instagram.
Also read: How to Get your Instagram Business Account Verified in 2021?
Living in a modern and growing retail revolution where customers are less interested in variety and more interested in being put in front of the items they are looking for. Shoppers don’t want to find products, they want products to find them at all times, which is why it is vital to understand the needs and wants of your customers.
Since Instagram checkout was released, it caters to its audience with a streamlined shopping experience and helping shoppers to the right products. This is only the start of the retail revolution, so it is more important than ever to take the steps toward a simplified purchasing journey by connecting customers with the right products.
Must Read: Instagram Shopping Guide – What Ecommerce Marketers Need to Know
Instagram has confirmed that the US can use the new feature Instagram Checkout as it’s available for all eligible businesses and creators in the US. The feature allows users to purchase without ever leaving the Instagram app, creating a streamlined, 2-tap process to converting Instagram followers into loyal customers.
In this article, we are taking a deeper dive into the advantages of Instagram Checkout. Also, we share how social selling is possible with Instagram Checkout.
What is Instagram Checkout?
Instagram Checkout allows shoppers buy products from brands directly on Instagram without leaving the app. With this feature, customers can tap to view a product from a shoppable post and then continue to the payment process, all withing Instagram. However, all they have to do is enter their personal information like name, email, billing information, and shipping address the first time they check out.
Instagram Checkout was launched in March 2019 with many brands making up the original beta test group. And now, Instagram Checkout is going mainstream. Here we will talk about a feature Instagram is developing to further revolutionizes eCommerce. Let’s start with feature that could be the biggest development in the online marketplace in years.
How Instagram Checkout simplifies the Multi-step Instagram Shopping process?
Let’s take a look into some interesting Instagram usage stats the relate to the shopping experience of its users:
- 500+ million users browse brands daily
- 130 million use shoppable tags every month
- 65% visit the brand’s app or website
At the moment, shopping on Instagram follows the lengthy and time-consuming marketing funnel that looks like this:
- Users go back and forth between the vendor’s eCommerce site
- They double back on the product info
- This needs further account info
- As a result, shoppers and conversion fall through the cracks throughout.
Instagram Checkout is just bliss because now you no longer have to worry about the time-consuming process as all addressed pain points are sort outed. You just need to follow 2-steps checkout process:
What you have to do?
Users need to click on a shoppable tag on a post. They select product details, quantity and hit the checkout on Instagram to place an order
How Direct Instagram Checkout Advances Social Selling?
Well, it is not hidden that Instagram Checkout can generate big revenue and has the capacity to generate more sell by 2021. But, more than profit for their businesses and creators, it is also help to their average users too.
According to Facebook data, 87% of surveyed people take action after seeing product information on Instagram. Furthermore, over 200 million IG users visit at least one business profile per day, and how most of them have bought something off the platform.
- Marketing Products directly
The first and foremost benefit you can ever avail from the Instagram is that this feature allows brand and sellers to market their products to a targeted audience, making shopping a seamless, frustration and friction-less maneuver. This is very much falling into Instagram’s unique benefit as a marketplace such as, it capitalizes on desire, not the intent.
- Exposes products with intent-marketing strategy
Just like Google, Bing, and Facebook algorithm, Instagram Checkout use an intent-marketing strategy and this type of marketing appeals to the conscious, rational mind and aims at buyer’s intent.
However, Instagram’s position as a mirror for the life users wants to live triggers desire in the subconscious mind which translates into impulsive buying. This will help you know what your customers think means their intention to make a purchase or likely to buy or not and that’s how you can address users who are appropriate for your brand.
- It’s easier to track the performance of ads and posts
Definitely, as a store owner, you predict a more user-friendly way of tracking the customer journey from the first to the final stage of purchase. You can save the back and forth between your eCommerce, Facebook Insights, and Google Analytics.
- Customer Streamline experience is “KEY”
Time is the greatest asset for any individual, especially in business. Reducing time to purchase is huge and important, but reducing the friction involved in making that purchase is equally necessary.
Instagram Checkout will save user’s information following their first purchase on the platform. This means that for every purchase that follows, the absolute minimum amount of effort will be involved in completing the transaction.
Also read: Top Instagram Mistakes that eCommerce Owners Should Avoid
Instagram Checkout is just timeless as it reduces friction because the entire process, from discovery to delivery, is contained within a single environment. You do need to switch devices for searching as all are available in a single device with minimum effort. Expect frictionless shopping to continue to grow as users become accustomed to this kind of experience.
TL; DR? Here’s conclusion:
Instagram checkout is making moves to the corner the eCommerce market with a slick checkout function powered by Instagram that would allow buyers to make purchase in-app. The rollout of checkout on Gram is a long-awaited feature on the wish lists of many digital marketers.
Instagram Checkout reflects and presages trends in eCommerce and the feature bring a seamless shopping experience for users, which will further create opportunity for social selling on Instagram. Hence, Instagram’s new Checkout feature is the best for social selling as marketers can directly communicate with their prospects on in-app (Instagram).
Need help in making more sells on Instagram with Checkout feature? M-connect Media can help you guide on social selling with Instagram’s new Checkout feature. Consult our eCommerce experts to know how you can make sell on Instagram.