For years, the online shopping experience has been evolving and gaining popularity due to large retailers like Amazon, Target, Walmart, Etsy and dozens more. More recently, Americans across the country are staying home and spending more time and money behind their screens.
Due to recent events, businesses are in need of practical, innovative and sustainable ways to operate while navigating the effects of COVID-19. According to Statista, the average daily in-home data usage in the U.S. for March has increased from 12 GB (gigabytes) in 2019 to 16.6 GB in 2020—a 38 percent increase.
Could your business benefit from an eCommerce tool allowing you to sell products directly through Instagram? It may be time to tap into Shopify.
What is Shopify?
Shopify is an all-inclusive online shopping cart helping businesses create and complete sales. It is designed to function where the majority of consumers are shopping: social media. According to Hootsuite, 130 million Instagram users click on a shoppable post each month, and 81 percent of users say they use Instagram to research and view products or services through the app.
Shopify is integrated into Instagram to create a seamless shopping experience for users without leaving the app. To break it down to the basics, products can be tagged within a social media post. A user may click the tag and have the opportunity to make the purchase right away while staying within the platform.
How do you utilize this service for your business on Instagram? Let’s dig in.
Benefits + Strategies
Having a shoppable Instagram means you can complete sales directly from your posts. The lines between social media and eCommerce are blurring and using social media to shop has become the preferred method for most Instagram users. Having Shopify enable shoppable content on your page simplifies the buyer’s journey from discovery to purchase. The easier it is to buy something, the more likely someone is to take that action thus increasing your sales.
Below are strategies businesses can take to maximize Shopify’s functionality:
- Create Instagram Galleries on your Shopify store on your homepage, Instagram shop page or product page that highlights user-generated content and builds a social following, which drives sales. To do this, you can pull from images that have tagged your account or used your hashtags to showcase them in the shoppable Instagram feed.
- Place follow buttons for your Instagram account on your Shopify store pages to increase your social following and the number of prospective customers.
- Install a tracking pixel on your Shopify store, you can run retargeting campaigns on Instagram for your products.
- Add the Shoppable Stories Stickers to your Instagram stories enabling users to shop your products directly from stories.
Set Up Shopify
Below is a high-level overview of the steps to set up your Shopify account:
- Create your account to sign up for a free trial and answer the prompted questions about your business. In response to COVID-19, Shopify has extended its free trial to 90 days. Be sure to sign up now to get this extended offer!
- In the dashboard, go to your admin panel. This is where you will enter in the bulk of information:
- Choose your theme
- Add products
- Go to Settings to enter additional information including Locations, Shipping, Checkout, Payments and Taxes
- Test your store through your Bogus Gateway that allows you to make sure all the information you entered is working and correct
- Add a custom domain name
Set Up Shopify on Instagram
Below is a high-level overview of the steps to add Instagram to your Shopify account:
- From the Admin Page in the Shopify app, click + next to Sales Channels
- Click to add Instagram (Be sure that your Instagram and Facebook pages are synced)
- Once you add Instagram as a channel, it will ask you to connect to your Facebook page and your products will begin to upload to Business Manager
- Go to Instagram and enable Instagram Shopping in Settings and all products in your Facebook Business Manager will be eligible to be tagged in your posts
Photos courtesy of Glow Apothecary. You can read their spotlight here.
Now, Instagram users will be able to discover your posts, tap on the tagged products and purchase them without having to leave the app, making their lives easier and increasing your sales.
Have questions or want to learn more? Reach out to our team of experts who can analyze and report on your website and social media data to help you better understand your customers and your decisions. Give us a ring at 757-962-7375 or shoot us an email at Info@ReedandAsscoatesMarketing.com.
Browse our portfolio to see how our team has helped clients increase the value of their online presence and social media efforts.
Special thank you to Glow Apothecary (@glowapothecary on Instagram) for providing photography to accompany our step-by-step directions to setting up your Shopify account on Instagram.
