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10/21/2014 Buy What You 'Like': You Can Now Shop Straight From Instagram
http://www.forbes.com/sites/clareoconnor/2014/08/28/buy-what-you-like-you-can-now-shop-straight-from-instagram/ 1/5
RETAIL (/RETAIL) 8/28/2014 @ 9:21AM 18,367 views
Buy What You 'Like': You CanNow Shop StraightFrom Instagram
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For retailers, three year old photo-sharing site Instagram has proven abonanza, with fans ‘liking’ and commenting on product images inunprecedented numbers.
Clare O'Connor (http://www.forbes.com/sites/clareoconnor/) Forbes StaffThe consumer economy: retail, and the people reinventing it.
10/21/2014 Buy What You 'Like': You Can Now Shop Straight From Instagram
http://www.forbes.com/sites/clareoconnor/2014/08/28/buy-what-you-like-you-can-now-shop-straight-from-instagram/ 2/5
According to analytics and marketing platform
Curalate, social media users interact with brands on
Instagram 58 times more than they do on Facebook
(http://www.forbes.com/facebook-ipo/), and a
whopping 120 times more than on Twitter
(/companies/twitter/) TWTR +0.3% (/companies/twitter/) .
But for retailers, Instagram has proven difficult to
monetize. The photo app doesn’t allow links on
individual posts. For example, over 15,100 of
Nordstrom's (/companies/nordstrom/)
JWN +2.07% (/companies/nordstrom/) 532,000+ Instagram
followers pressed ‘like’ on a photo of colorful
Christian Louboutin heels
(http://instagram.com/p/r239S9G9eM/?
modal=true) in late August.
But if any of those fans wanted to immediately buy
that pair of $1400 shoes, they’d be out of luck.
They’d have to leave Instagram and dig around on
their own on Nordstrom’s site to find the pumps, or
— more likely — just head to Google
(/companies/google/) GOOGL +0.71% (/companies/google/) or
abandon the search entirely.
“It’s been a customer pain point,” said Bryan
Galipeau, social media director at Nordstrom.
“When we would post these images, pretty much
every time we’d get questions like: ‘Is this still available? What size? What
does it cost?’”
Nordstrom’s social media team would reply to individual comments
underneath posts of clothing and accessories, giving potential buyers the
relevant item numbers. This proved time consuming, to say the least.
Now, a solution: Nordstrom is the first retailer to roll out Like2Buy, a new
service that makes Instagram shoppable developed by Curalate.
Billed as the “missing link” between traffic and revenue
(http://www.curalate.com/solutions/Like2Buy/), the technology allows fans
to click the one link Instagram permits (atop a brand’s profile page) then
displays an elegant grid of all the items up for sale from the retailer’s feed. One
more click takes a user to the store’s secure mobile site.
Like2Buy also functions as a curation tool for shoppers. By ‘liking’ a photo of a
handbag, or lipstick, or anything, Instagrammers can create their own wishlist
or save products to buy later.
10/21/2014 Buy What You 'Like': You Can Now Shop Straight From Instagram
http://www.forbes.com/sites/clareoconnor/2014/08/28/buy-what-you-like-you-can-now-shop-straight-from-instagram/ 3/5
As well as Nordstrom, major retailers already signed
up to use Like2Buy include Target
(/companies/target/) TGT +2.31% (/companies/target/) and
Charlotte Russe. For the latter, with its demographic
of mobile-savvy teen girls, the platform represents
an important advancement.
“Our shopper is using social media to influence
purchases,” said Kristen Strickler, social media and
PR manager at the fast fashion brand. “And the
more steps they have to take to buy something, the
more it drops off.”
Strickler adds that Charlotte Russe shoppers have responded particularly well
to photos of “product laydowns”, to use industry parlance (see the above photo
for an example, tagged with #OOTD – Outfit Of The Day – a popular
Instagram hashtag for fashion lovers).
“Across the board, millenials respond to those the most,” said Strickler.
“That’s how they would put together a look on the hanger, or on the floor the
night before they wear it.”
Now, Charlotte Russe and brands of its ilk can finally see some real return on
investment for these carefully created Instagram outfits.
“Making Instagram shoppable is something we’ve been wanting to do for a
long time,” she said. “Fans have been constantly asking.”
Nordstrom’s Bryan Galipeau sees Like2Buy as a step in the right direction for
social media personalization. “This has been live for 24 hours, and the initial
feedback has been pretty positive,” he said. “It’s, ‘why didn’t I think of that?’”
5 Promising Photo Apps You Should Know
1 of 5
(http://www.forbes.com/pictures/mlf45ehhmf/cinemagram2/)
PuddingPudding is South Korea’s answer to Instagram. Hugely
popular in Asia, with 77% of its 2 million users based in
the region, Pudding has had over 4 millions photos
uploaded to it since its February launch. The app's