Online shopping is becoming more and more social
Social media platforms are used for many things. For users, procrastination probably springs to mind. Business owners and marketers would be more likely to say advertising. There is something is coming to more and more of these platforms that essentially combines the two. Online shopping capabilities are being built in to the social media platforms themselves. A pair of them either updated or launched their offering over the last few days.
The launch came courtesy of Pinterest. The design-heavy platform seemed a perfect fit for retailers who service those industries. Pinterest must have noticed, creating a beta testing version in 2017. This test version was available to only a handful of companies but would turn those companies’ “product catalogue into visual, actionable ads.” Now, the training testing wheels are coming off.
Pinterest will now open up their Shopping Ads feature to more businesses. Marketing Land paraphrased the social media platform, claiming that Pinterest says they are “testing new ad designs aimed at prompting ‘more visual shopping cues’ and expanding its Shop the Look program (an ad product for fashion and home decor brands that allows users to shop directly from a Pin) to France, Germany, Japan and the UK.” Prospective advertisers need to complete a sign-up form and work with Pinterest on next steps before their customers can start online shopping off of their Pinterest Boards.
While you wait to hear back from Pinterest, perhaps have a scroll through the Instagram profile of your favorite retailers. You may see an opportunity to buy your next outfit right off their profile. That’s because the social media platform grew their online shopping offering this week. Instagram announced that their shoppable organic posts feature would be coming to eight more countries (including Canada) on March 20.
Marketing Land, also reporting on this announcement, paraphrased Instagram as saying, “With easy access to pricing and product details, shoppers can tap on a tagged post within their feeds or through the shop button on a business’s profile to take the next steps to learn more.” It was also stated that quite a few users are pulling the trigger and purchasing items.
We joked at the onset on this post about online shopping being essentially storefronts for online window shoppers continuing their scroll. We actually took an artistic liberty there because people are buying quite a bit of stuff through these platforms. In just one example, “’shopping on Instagram can be directly attributed to over 1,200 orders and over 100,000 sessions,’ says Lulus Vice President of Marketing Noelle Sandler.”
These new or updated online shopping features join Facebook Marketplace in the ecosystem of social shopping. The 2016 debutant brought the world of Craigslist or Kijiji to your News Feed. Facebook noticed that a lot of people were using buy and sell groups on their platform, 450 million, in fact. So, they decided to make their own feature to facilitate these transactions. If you’ve downloaded the latest Facebook app, you’ll probably see the Marketplace icon at the bottom of your screen.
With Pinterest covering design and furnishings, Instagram covering retail and Facebook covering peer-to-peer, the online shopping inclined are turning to social media platforms. Maybe your next purchase will be a scroll down from a cat gif or a Happy Birthday post.