Instagram Made a Major Announcement This Morning And It May Change the Way You Shop Online
This morning, Instagram lifted the curtain on an idea that the company has been refining for years. The app now has a checkout function, meaning you can store your credit card information in your profile and click to buy directly from the app, as opposed to being redirected to a brand’s website. Before the launch today, users were able to tap product tags in a post, product stickers in Stories, and a shopping destination in Explore, which would then take them out of Instagram and into a new URL where credit card and shipping information would have to be input. This trial run of shoppable Instagram features was a success; according to the company, 130 million people were tapping the product tags each month.
For the launch of Checkout, Instagram has partnered with an impressive roster of brands, including Burberry, Prada, Oscar de la Renta, Balmain, and Michael Kors. H&M, Zara, Nike, Warby Parker, and Outdoor Voices have signed on as well, as have beauty brands like KKW Beauty and NARS.
Instagram users will be able to pay with Visa, Mastercard, Discover, and Paypal, the latter of which is serving as the main processor for the transactions. The company explains that having the ability for a direct checkout through the app will enhance security for the purchaser and create a more seamless shopping experience, one that starts and ends on Instagram. For now, the above names, plus a few more, are the only brands participating in the beta launch, but there is excitement around the evolution of this new technology. The idea of buying an entire wardrobe with a single double tap is apparently much closer than we thought.
