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What Is Instagram Shopping?
Instagram shopping is an aspect of the Instagram app that’s developed overtime over the years. It allows people to shop products from your posts whether they are photos or videos.
When you have Instagram shopping available on your profile, you’ll be able to see a little tag appear on your post. People can click that tag and then be taken directly to your product page. It is a really great feature for online influencers and businesses as it not only brings more traffic to your account but also more revenue.
Why Does Instagram Shopping Matter?
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Cred: @laurachouette
Technology is powerful, the global social commerce market is estimated to be around $90 billion as of today, but it is expected to grow to over $600 billion by 2027. That’s only 5 years from now. In layman’s terms, more people are shopping on social media apps today than ever before.
For example, 60% of Gen Z in the US use Instagram to discover new brands and products and 48% of Americans ages 18 to 34 have made a purchase from social media, and these numbers are only growing. This is unsurprising, platforms such as Lensa who are keeping track of these things claim that entrepreneurship and freelancing, especially online, is growing rapidly.
So, what am I going to need to set up my Instagram shop? It’s not as complicated as you may think, all you need is an Instagram account (whether business or creator, doesn’t matter), a connected Facebook page or website, and you need to sell physical products. If you’ve got all those things, pull up your Instagram account, and let’s set up your Instagram shop.
How To Set It Up
Your first step is to go to your Instagram homepage on your phone tap the hamburger menu in the upper right, then tap “Settings”. From there, you need to tap either “business” or “creator” (depending on what your account is currently selected to be). From there, you’re going to see the button that says “set up Instagram shopping”. Tap that and then tap the get started button at the bottom of your screen.
Next, you’ll have to connect your Facebook account so you’ll likely get a pop-up asking you to sign in if you’re not signed in. Go ahead and connect your Instagram account to your business page on Facebook. Once that’s done, you’re then going to see your screen asking you to set up your account’s center. If you tap “not now” you’re not going to complete this process to set up your shop so go ahead and tap “finish setting up”.
From there you should see a catalog connection page. This is the catalog where Instagram lists out all of its partners that it can work with in terms of e-commerce products. Now take a look at the background information on Shopify if that’s the back end of your shop. If not, there’s also BigCommerce, Magento, or WooCommerce as options.
If you don’t have any of those set up, simply tap “new catalog” and that will take you to the next page where your shop has been submitted for review.
With these steps, you have begun the process of getting your shop on Instagram. Instagram is then going to take a few days to a week to review your account and then hopefully approve your shop.
Connecting Your Facebook Products
Now that your Instagram shop has been submitted for review there is another step that you can take while you’re waiting. It’s time to connect your Facebook products to the back end of your sales channel whether that’s Shopify, WooCommerce, or another platform. This part is a bit technical, so it’s probably best if you look at some YouTube tutorial videos that can show you exactly how to connect your products.
Adding Your Products To Your Instagram Catalog
After you’ve connected your products to your sales channel go ahead and check your Instagram app because hopefully, you’ll see the pop-up message that your shop has been approved. At this point, the back end of your sales channel has been connected to your profile, but the products don’t populate automatically. You actually have to choose them from your catalog and add them to your Instagram profile.
As you’re adding products from your catalog keep in mind that it might take some time for them to populate and for you to see them, so you might not see them showing up right away but give it 30 minutes or so, and then they should appear. Once everything is approved and you’re starting to see your products appear on your Instagram profile you can now tag your post with your products don’t tag you in your posts with your products is a key last step.
On your Instagram profile tap the “view shop” button and then tap on “add product”. Here is where it becomes essential that you’ve connected your Facebook products to the back end of your sales channel because if all went well, you will be able to see the list of all the products you’re trying to sell. Select which products you want to add to your Instagram accounts catalog by simply tapping “add“, then “done” on the upper right-hand corner. From here on, it’s basic Instagramming.
Creating A Post
https://unsplash.com/photos/60GsdOMRFGc
Cred: @karsten116
To create a new post, use a photo or video of the product that you want to sell and when you go to tag the post you will see a new option called “tag products“. When you click that it will bring up the full catalog, so just select the item that is on your post. Now you can share the post and when people tap on your product they will be directed to where they can purchase it.
The steps are very similar for creating stories as well. You can link any product and redirect the post to your shop in your stories. If you’ve done all the steps, your Instagram shop is in business. Congratulations on your store and I hope it’s successful!
