Instagram has 1 billion active users, 80% of whom follow at least one business (of which there are 25 million!). So basically, there's a lot of shopping happening on the 'gram, and these days, more and more users are citing shopping as one of their top Instagram interests.
In September, Instagram expanded shopping to Stories with the introduction of product stickers — which means that when you tap on the cool blue eyeliner featured in that photo you're looking at, you're taken to the product page on the brand's site where you can easily become the proud owner of said blue eyeliner (or whatever else you find while browsing). As of today, though, Instagram is rolling out three new features to make shopping on the platform even easier and more efficient.
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The first (and, IMO, the most exciting) piece of news: You can now create a saved Shopping collection, which means you can save products to easily come back to and reference. This feature functions like the Save tool we're already familiar with – you can add posts to your own curated collection that lives on the righthand panel of your profile, only now, you can do it with products in addition to cat memes. This new Shopping collection capability is especially useful for when you're shopping in Stories (since Stories disappear after 24 hours). All you have to do is tap the product tag and then tap the Save button, and voila, the item is saved so you can deliberate 'til your heart's content over whether you need it or just want it.
You can also shop in video, marking Instagram's official entrée into the window shopping space. Now, when you're watching a makeup tutorial on Milk's Instagram feed, for example, you can tap the shopping tag and see exactly which highlighter, shadow, and concealer are being featured in the video, and you can buy them right then and there. But it's not just beauty brands that will be utilizing this new feature — Instagram notes that more and more apparel brands will be moving toward this immersive tool as well.
Lastly, Instagram is introducing a redesign of the Shop tab on brand and retailer profiles — which means that now there's a way to see every product a brand is selling together in one easy place, with individual prices listed as well as the posts that feature them, so you can reference what each item looks like styled or in action. So now you can buy a capsule wardrobe in approximately five minutes from the comfort of your couch, whereas before it might have taken 15. And time is money, right?
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Good luck trying to stay away from Black Friday sales now, folks. You've been warned.