In case you already didn’t love Instagram enough for posting photos and stories, messaging friends and family, following your favorite brands and celeb crushes…they have now taken their platform to a whole new level. Users can now make purchases right on the app. That’s right! No more leaving the app to go to a store’s website, no more having to repetitively type in your credit card information to each store website (and aggressively looking for your credit card when you see that pair of shoes you just need that moment right now…who’s with me), and wasting 45 more minutes of time scrolling through the store website finding more things you don’t need. This development is not only going to change a lot of online sopping habits, but has a lot of opportunities for brands, ESPECIALLY Marketers (my favorite).

When I heard the news, I had to try it for myself. So, here is how the “Checkout with Instagram” feature works. Let us all pretend we are sitting on our couches scrolling through our Instagram feeds…brunch photos from the weekend, people “dreaming” of summer nights, “I love you to the moon & back” significant other posts, “good lighting” selfies…oh my god our favorite store!

No way…I love this store and this style…how would they ever know (cough…cookies and customer behavior and data tracking,). Just like yesterday, I can tap on the image and see the prices and names of each of the items. But yesterday is not today & today I can click on those little black rectangles for a pleasant surprise that is NOT taking me to an external link away from my ever-so exciting Instagram feed.

Are you ready for this…

Welcome to your Checkout screen, where you can choose your size, the color of your choice, and smile with happiness that you have not been taken to your Safari app (which probably has 700 tabs open). After putting in your name, e-mail address, credit card information and shipping preferences, you are DONE…right back to that Instagram feed of Mom selfies!

Once you use Instagram’s new Checkout feature the first time, your payment information will be securely stored, so say goodbye to that payment information tab on your online shopping order (you all know how annoying that part is).

In case I did a terrible job explaining this process, see what Instagram has to say about their new feature (great video demonstration…highly recommend).

Online shoppers everywhere should be jumping from their seats. As if ordering this year’s Christmas presents from your couch wasn’t easy enough, you can now successfully and obsessively make impulse purchase decisions (yay, more shoes!) . Now, obviously we have determined that this is just fabulous for us consumers and impulse shoppers, but let’s see what is in store for the brands who now have this new outlet for purchases. Instagram will be serving fees to the brands utilizing this option, in case you thought this was free and games, I mean fun and games.

Say Goodbye to Abandoned Online Shopping Carts
If you say you have never put a bunch of items in your online shopping cart, just to leave them and never buy them your are a LIAR (and I don’t like liars). The “Checkout with Instagram” feature takes away the thought and hesitation associated with customers choosing items and saving them for later, or in other words, abandoning them. Catching customers in the moment and taking away the hassle of guessing their logins, re-typing credit card information, and thinking about “do I really need this” has great benefits for brands.
Consumers Will Actually Want to Follow Their Brands on Social Media
Following brands on social media can go one of two ways. You are either a die hard fan who must look at every post, or you just love the store and don’t need to follow their every day moves. This new feature gives users the extra incentive to follow all the brands they buy from. They won’t want to miss out on a deal, especially if they can just click and checkout right on the spot. For brands, this is a great opportunity to build community and loyalty. Brand social media accounts will go to a whole new level, and the opportunities to show off your brand, your products, and your purpose are endless. Take advantage! Show off your products and catch people in that special moment when their eyes glisten at a new sale or product.
Tracking & Performance Metrics (YAWN…just kidding, very important).
Brands usually allocate a generous spend to social media. Whether that is sponsored posts, social media influencers, content development and generation…the whole package is a big time and money expense which does not always have the most accurate of results in the analytics and performance metrics world. Purchases made directly from Instagram will be able to be tracked. Brands will know exactly how many purchases are coming from Instagram, allowing them to budget their time and money more effectively. If you are getting a great new surge of orders from Instagram, keep up your presence and posts. If you think you can do better, up your Instagram game.
Don’t Lose Eager Customers on the Journey Over to the Safari App
As crazy as it sounds, brands lose customers just from the transition over to the external website. We want things easy and fast, and sometimes the smallest thing as leaving Instagram can cause us to get distracted, lose interest, not want to put the effort in to put all our details in, and make the final “Order” step.
It Can’t Get Any Easier
Enough said! As if online shopping didn’t take the hassle out of buying gifts and every day needs enough, we now have this easy new addition to most of our every day routines. We have essentially married one of our most popular time-passers with online shopping, and I don’t know about you, but I am personally worried about my bank account.
What does this mean for the future of online shopping? Will all of our social media accounts become the hub for advertising, shopping AND checkout? Will brands successfully catch their impulse shoppers in the moment of “I need these shoes now.” I’m excited to see how this development rolls out & even more excited to see what will come next to compete with this.
Until then, CHECK-it-OUT!
Bean
http://linkedin.com/in/sabinaruggles
@sabinaruggles