Facebook-owned Instagram is bringing the in-app shopping feature on its platform for Indian users of the social media from next year. To begin with, the customers may be able to click on a product displayed on Instagram to be taken to the corresponding website where the buying could be carried out, reports Mint. Later the same products can be purchased from within Instagram itself, converting the platform into an ecommerce-enabled one.
This will pit Instagram directly in competition with the high-profile online fashion sellers in India, Myntra, promoted by Flipkart and Amazon, which also has a section selling fashion garments. Flipkart is aggressively promoting its Flipkart Fashion as well. And they will also have for company, Google and Instagram’s parent Facebook, who are also keen to foray into ecommerce in their ways.
The feature on Instagram will let the users view the images and then tap the “buy” button to make the purchase. The direct handling of the sale is not going to be easy with having to sew up the back-end operations like payments, logistics and deliveries. The existing players have already gone through the mill in trying to arrive at a perfect model. There will be no dearth of business with the online fashion universe in the Indian context being projected at $4 billion. One observation could be smaller-sized retailers exhibiting their collections on Instagram might be benefitted immediately since this is one aspect customers have been missing on the platform, the option to buy a product they like on the site. Though the shopping feature has already been added to the Instagram site this kind of a full-fledged ecommerce would be coming for the first time.
India, in many ways, occupies the top pace or at least in the top three in the world in terms of user base and in terms of mobile phone users. In the case of Instagram too, after the US, India has the highest number of users of the platform.