For small businesses already using Shopify (NYSE: SHOP) and Instagram to market products online, a new update will let your customers shop on Instagram with Shopify in more places around the world.
The “shopping on Instagram” feature allows businesses to tag products in Instagram posts. Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK are the latest markets Shopify has enabled this feature for merchants.
For small businesses in the US, the expansion to these eight new markets will allow them to sell their products to an increasingly international customer base. With 500 million daily active users, Instagram provides great opportunities.
In the press release, Susan Rose, Director of Product Marketing for Instagram, explains how this feature allows businesses to reach more people. Rose says, “By integrating with Shopify, we’re giving even more businesses the ability to reach people at that moment of inspiration while making it easier for their potential customers to shop directly from Instagram”
Shopify Sell on Instagram
Instagram and Shopify have been testing the latest feature in the US during since the holiday shopping season in late-2017. As long as you are located in the US or one of the eight countries mentioned in the announcement, you can now start selling to Instagram users in a much larger audience.
You do need to have the Facebook channel installed in your Shopify store with an approved Facebook Shop, and an Instagram Business Account to use the new feature. But with these requirements out of the way, you can immediately add the new Instagram sales channel app to your Shopify store for free.
The channel lets you tag posts on your Instagram account so they can be discovered by users in any of the countries now covered by the service. When they are ready to make the purchase, customers simply check out directly on Shopify without leaving Instagram.
Shortening the Path to Purchase
At the end of the day, the goal of the new channel is to remove the different pain points customers encounter when they want to buy something. Satish Kanwar, Vice President of Product at Shopify, adds in the release, “Shoppers around the world increasingly demand unique experiences that shorten the path to purchase, and the future of commerce will need to meet and exceed these evolving demands.”
You can try the new Shopify and Instagram integration here.
Image: Shopify