The past few weeks have been full of news regarding Instagram and how they will continue to build out shopping on the app. You can see our previous story on the rumors of the company building a shopping-specific app here.

However, before revealing any more about the speculated app, Instagram made a move this week to continue to go after Pinterest and Wish in the shopping game.

Instagram launched more shopping features across the app to let people discover and consider products before making a purchase on the merchant’s website.

There is still no in-app purchasing capabilities, but all signs point to Instagram working in that direction.

People Want Personalization

The latest updates include a personalized Instagram Explore for shopping which will pull products the app thinks you will be most interested in. So, you’ll be able to discover new trends, sneakers, fashions, etc. right in your explore tab. Pretty cool, huh?

Also, Instagram has expanded shopping tags for Instagram stories after a limited rollout in June. The expansion will make the tags available worldwide and gives capabilities to brands in 46 countries to add the shopping bag to their Stories.

In case your new to seeing the shopping tags, they allow brands to add one per story and customize by color and style to match the photo or video in the Story. Users are then sent directly to the merchant’s website in the app where they can complete their purchase.

Since their creation, shopping tags have averaged 90 million clicks per month from Instagram users. That is a lot of eCommerce.

Which brings us to why.

Well, the most obvious reason for the new shopping tools is the attention these will bring and in turn help lead users to more ads. More ads viewed means more ad revenue.

Perhaps most importantly, these new features will prove to merchants Instagram’s ability to drive sales and increase revenue.

But, this also presents a unique problem for brands.

A focus on shopping could lead to brands to tailor their content strategies to focus specifically on boosting sales on Instagram.

Becoming reliant on Instagram for sales could become problematic for brands and lead to catastrophic should the platform face a scandal similar to its parent company.

For now, though, Instagram presents a unique opportunity for brands to increase sales and increase the visibility of new products, lines, and creative.

Have a brand that you’d like to take to the next level on Instagram? Let us know!