How to set up an Instagram store with Instagram Shopping

With Instagram Shopping, you can sell products directly via an Instagram business account. If you want to set up Instagram Shopping, link your Instagram account to your Facebook account and choose a category, your preferred design, and products to import from your Facebook catalogue. The Instagram shop and products are managed via the Commerce Manager.

In­tro­duced by Mark Zuck­er­berg in 2020, Instagram Shopping is a newish, free feature provided by the social app. It builds on the discovery that many busi­nesses are now selling via Instagram. In a nutshell, Instagram Shopping is a microsite for products in­teg­rated into an Instagram account. Products are imported by linking to a Facebook business account and selected product cata­logues.

The shopping feature lets you manage product images, de­scrip­tions, prices, and links so customers can check out via an Instagram profile. Depending on the shop software in use, customers won’t even have to navigate away from the Instagram app. The benefits of Instagram Shopping should not be un­der­es­tim­ated: out of around one billion users globally, 50 to 80 percent follow at least one business profile according to surveys. The op­por­tun­it­ies for social commerce, social selling, and in­flu­en­cer marketing are enormous.

With Instagram Shopping, you use an Instagram-in­teg­rated shop to feature products and col­lec­tions. These can be tagged in profile photos, Instagram Stories, and Instagram Reels to direct visitors to your Instagram shop. In addition, the Shop button and Shop tab in your profile list products imported from Facebook and invites visitors to browse your portfolio. Customers can use the checkout function to make in-app purchases or buy from your online shop.

You can tag up to five products in your shopping posts. Instagram carousels let you tag up to 20. In Stories or Reels, you can tag one product each. Your visitors will see the product name and pricing, a link to the product page, and a shopping basket icon. Product tags and stickers redirect users to the Instagram shop. If a product is tagged, you’ll be notified in your shopping feed on your business profile

Setting up and using Instagram Shopping is free, but the platform charges to place ads to direct potential customers to your shop. There are also sales fees for products sold or chargebacks. For sales, taxes and payment pro­cessing fees are deducted from a seller’s pay out. More in­form­a­tion about fees can be found in the Commerce Manager financial reports.

To get started with your Instagram shop and boost product reach, follow these steps.

Before setting up your Instagram shop, check Facebook’s or Meta’s Retail Qual­i­fic­a­tion Re­quire­ments. The following con­di­tions must be met:

1. You must adhere to Facebook guidelines.
2. Your shop must contain only products (not services) that are related to your company, your website, or online shop.
3. Your products and company must be located in a market supported by Facebook.
4. Your Instagram business account and online shop must be serious, trans­par­ent, and customer friendly.

Start by setting up the shop in Commerce Manager or import it from your shop platform via Facebook. The advantage is that you can syn­chron­ise your product listing and include in­form­a­tion from your Instagram shop. Some of the eCommerce platforms supported for product import are:

1. Shopify
2. Woo­Com­merce
3. Magento
4. Big­Com­merce
5. Com­mer­ce­Hub
6. Feedo­nom­ics
7. OpenCart

Set your preferred checkout method and sales channel in the Commerce Manager. Select whether you want the shop to be used primarily for Instagram or Facebook too. Now link existing product cata­logues to your shop or build a new catalogue by adding products, prices, and de­scrip­tions.

Select ‘E-commerce’ as the category for your shop to add product tags and product stickers to Instagram posts. In your profile, navigate to ‘Settings’ > ‘Business’ > ‘Instagram Shopping’ to submit your shop to Instagram for veri­fic­a­tion. This should only take a few days. Following con­firm­a­tion, you can tag products via ‘Tag products’ in Instagram posts and expand your shop.

Instagram Shopping should be ac­com­pan­ied by ad­di­tion­al marketing efforts focused on at­tract­ing new Instagram followers and customers. These include a pro­fes­sion­al Instagram bio, Instagram Ads, and strategies to measure campaign success using Instagram stat­ist­ics tools.

To use Instagram Shopping optimally, follow these tips:

Whether you’re selling hardware, fashion, or art, be sure to customise your shopping stickers and shopping feed to match your style, brand, and company profile. Be trans­par­ent and reach out to your target audience in a pro­fes­sion­al manner, e.g. by adding testi­mo­ni­als, reviews, or price-per­form­ance com­par­is­ons.

Although shopping stickers can’t be in­teg­rated in adverts, you can schedule Instagram Ads, link to your shopping feed, and motivate people to click through.

The Instagram algorithm counts the number of users reading captions and hashtags. Suc­cess­ful captions improve the ranking and vis­ib­il­ity of your profile on the Instagram Explore page. Think about useful, ex­plan­at­ory, or in­ter­est­ing captions for posts in a shopping feed and integrate hashtags.

Sad, but true: many users in­stinct­ively consider shopping posts to be adverts and scroll past them. That’s why it’s important to create an eye-catching shop that includes quality product photos and con­sist­ent branding. Try to avoid spelling errors in captions, product names, and prices.