After testing Shops in the US earlier this month, Instagram has all but concluded plans to introduce ads on the Instagram Shop tab globally. Users in those countries where the tab is available will start seeing ads in the tab anytime soon.
Instagram has never hidden its desires to venture into ecommerce; and this just goes to confirm what we already know. Recall that the Facebook-owned company had earlier implemented shopping in Reels to compete with TikTok.
Per TechCrunch, ads will appear as a tile within the current structure that sees items on Shops appear in a two-column grid of square tiles. The ads, however, will be marked “Sponsored” in the bottom-left corner of the image. When you click on the ad, it will open the Product Detail page that shows more information about them.
Users will be able to save a product from an ad to their wish list or send it to a friend. If any ad is found to be inappropriate, you can press and hold its tile to see options to hide or report it.
In 2020, Instagram added a shopping feature to Reels; its TikTok clone. Shopping is already visible in virtually everywhere you turn to within the app. Places like Feed, Stories, IGTV, Live, and now Reels all present you with an opportunity to shop. Going forward, viewers can tap through tags to buy or save them. Of course, those tags would first have to be created by businesses and creators, and have them tagged to products when Reels are created.
Shopping gives people who come to Instagram for inspirational ideas to also close deals. What that means is that you can achieve two things while you are on the platform—you get great shopping ideas, and get to place your order. It is a win-win situation for Instagram and its parent company Facebook. Facebook makes money from ads it sells to brands, and get people to buy within the app.
Shopping will only get better on the social media—companies like Facebook, Instagram and the likes will continue to innovate. The future is bright for brands, creators, users, and the social media companies.
The TikTok-cloned feature was first launched in the US, UK, Japan, Mexico, and in about 50 other countries of the world. This was after Instagram had tested Reels in India; a country where TikTok’s major headache started from.
