Long gone are the days when social media was just about seeing what your friends and family were doing. Social platforms such as Instagram are now more focused on helping creators to make money on the app rather than just being for pure entertainment.
Rather than going to a brand's website or Facebook/Instagram Shop, potential customers can now shop and search for products with help from brand representatives on Instagram DM.
Meta announced that customers can:
Chat with a representative in real time to ask questions or make customisations to their orders
Create payment requests and pay in the chat using meta pay
Whilst these tools are great for business owners, you may be wondering if anyone is actually using them? If you are then the results from a recent survey might shock you.
28% of social media users age 18-34 have bought a product directly in a social media app in the past three months
1 in 4 people age 18-24 have used social media DMs for customer service in the past three months
Social media is Gen Z’s and Millennials preferred channel for discovering new products.
Whilst Instagram isn't the only social media platform who have shifted into the e-commerce world, it’s defiantly the most popular. Looking forward, we can say that you’ll see Instagram continue embracing the shopping experience, and other social channels will likely follow suit. Although social shopping has huge potential, users may start to be put off by the changes and flee to apps who are more concerned with connecting with people than shopping.