Instagram for eCommerce – 5 Proven Solutions for Selling Products on Instagram

Are you an eCommerce brand and looking for selling products on Instagram? During our research, we found that many people want to purchase the products shared by brands on their channel, but how? Here I will show you the way to use tools & services with your Instagram channel that will help your audiences to easily locate the product you shared at your Instagram account.

When we consider the popularity of social media platform, active users is the key metrics to consider. And if we talk about the most popular social media platforms by considering the active users; Instagram is on 2nd place with over 300 million monthly daily active users.  One of the fastest and most dominant user generated photo/video sharing platforms, Instagram has also been coming up with added features every now and then. It has grown from being a platform to share cat pictures and selfie to a serious marketing tool. Instagram has in fact grown to become a lifestyle for smart phone users with researchers suggesting that 70% of users search for brands on the platform. Today, when 84% of mobile users will turn to their smart device to look for and compare products, the opportunities with Instagram marketing seems momentous.

Here are 5 unique Instagram tools to put into work:

#1 Instagram Shopping

Anyone would agree how mobile has changed the way we shop. Whether you are travelling or seated at a dinner, a smart phone allows for product browsing, comparing and even ordering it for delivery to your doorsteps. Instagram suggest that 84% of smart phone users in the US will search for products on their devices and the trend are similar is the rest of the globe too. Instagram consequently will be launching a shopping add-on that will allow users to look up for more product details from a picture. The Instagram community is “open to discovery” and this Shopping integration will help them better understand the products they are interested in.

Instagram Shopping will allow for a tag to be embedded into pictures and can be activated by tapping. This tag will offer more details like pricing and up to five related products. Subsequently, the user will be able to view a “Shop Now” link that will redirect him/her to the product website and encourage a buy.

#2 Shoppable Instagram by Yotpo

Developed by Yotpo, Shoppable Instagram brings together a wide range of features that allows businesses do more with their Instagram posts. Yotpo is basically a user generated platforms for reviews on online businesses. It has been helping more than 10,000 Magento stores create user generated content including photos, Q&A, reviews and more – all aimed at increasing sales and driving traffic. With Shoppable Instagram, Yotpo allows users to advocate products to engage audience. Social curation such as this also helps optimizing product pages. Further, Shoppable Instagram comes with unique tools for photo discovery, shoppable feeds, easy moderation and rights management. After you have collected all relevant photos in a single feed, you can go on to thank contributors, prioritize posts, and even integrate special shopping tags.

According to Yotpo, Shoppable Instagram can add a 180% engagement rate for your Instagram photos. Since Instagram is a growing community of more than 500 million active users, business can expect a higher chance of conversion. Another useful weapon with Shoppable Instagram is the ‘Mail After Purchase’ (MAP) feature. It’s an encouraging way of having customers leave reviews on products and websites. Reminders ensure that you can get maximum user generated/customer reviews

#3 Soldsie

Soldsie is another unique Instagram ecommerce app that allows users for buying products from Instagram feeds just by commenting “sold” and putting in their email address! Soldsie will automatically generate invoice and sent to the email address that the user is registered with or the one mentioned in their comments. The customer will subsequently have 24 hours to make the payment after which the process takes the normal Shopify course. There are other options too available for sellers if they don’t have a Shopify account.

Soldsie really has a different take on linking Instagram posts. Since pictures in Instagram don’t support a hyperlink, Soldsie users the comments and profile section (customers) to showcase products and encourage conversions. Soldsie has been picking up with a lot of small and medium scale ecommerce businesses and you don’t actually need a product website to make the sale! Soldsie pricing is based on the number of clicks you get. Between 0 and 49 clicks, you will not have to pay a penny. That pricing starts at $5 for clicks between 50 and 499, and then $45 for clicks between 500 and 999, $150 for clicks between 1000 and 2999 and lastly, $300 for clicks above 3000. It’s easy and incredible!

#4 Shoppable Instagram by Photoslurp

Shoppable Instagram by Photoslurp takes another unique view on upselling your product photographs. The idea is about converting photographs to attach a brand story and thus drive engagement. With more and more customers endorsing products on social media, Shoppable Instagram by Photoslurp makes great sense. . The tool also allows businesses to collect user generated photographs that best match the brand identity, thank the contributors and request for the photos to be used as a marketing tool. They can be publishes across all marketing platforms – social media handles, live display, mobile and even offline campaigns. The process integrates an authenticity to the marketing and when the review comes from real users, the credibility is automatically raised.

Apart from this, you can always include tags on your new posts that offer more product details (pricing, etc) and consequently redirect the interested user to the product website.

#5 Like2Buy

In 2014 Like2Buy was launched by Curalate which can help ecommerce stores to sell products via Instagram. If you are using Instagram than you likely to know that Instagram allows users to add one live link in their profile bio. If you want to sell your products via Instagram then just add Like2Buy link in your bio. When any of your follower or profile visitors clicks on that link it will drive them to company’s Like2Buy page with all product images in grid format.

The biggest benefit of this Instagram eCommerce tool is that users don’t need to visit brand’s website and search for products which they have seen in their Instagram feed. Nordstorm & Charlotte Russe were the first companies used this tool which generated impressive click through rate.

Now its your turn! Start using these tools for selling your products on Instagram and be the part of this ever increasing social commerce industry. Do you need any help? feel free to contact me, I will be get back to you within 24 hours.