Instagram is about to be shoppable. That means the mind-numbing scrolling habit you’ve been half-assedly trying to break for, like, four years, is going to need to make room for another tangential vice: spending all your money without so much as leaving the toilet or the actual Instagram app. What a time to be alive, to be honest.
“Instagram announced on Nov. 1 that the app is testing technology that will facilitate shopping through the app,” reported Quartz this morning. “Starting next week, about 20 US retail brands — J.Crew, Warby Parker, and JackThreads among them — will be able to integrate product information into their posts with special tags.”
How do you feel about this? My knee-jerk response is sympathy for the legion of apps that have launched in the past couple years for the express purpose of making Instagram shoppable. I want to send them an edible arrangement or something. I can’t say I’m surprised though; the features introduced via supplementary apps get snapped up with shocking consistency by the big fish they serve. Instagram has done this to Vine, Snapchat, Phhhoto, VSCO and loads of others I never knew existed, probably.
Perhaps more interesting is how this new feature will change how we shop. Have you seen how ASOS integrates Instagram photos onto its product pages? It’s super helpful. If shoppable tags on Instagram mean more of us have the opportunity to see products we want out in the world, on all kinds of bodies and in all kinds of environments, this has the potential to be a far superior shopping experience. One grounded in reality: products out of the photo studio, unpinned, unretouched.
The flipside is that shoppable tags could rob the app of its authenticity. Who just laughed when I implied Instagram was currently authentic? I’m talking relatively! Anyway, I wouldn’t put it past us. It is 2016 after all; we’ve been known to ruin stuff on the internet at lightning speed (#kenbone).
What do you think? Are you interested in shopping on Instagram? Do you even USE Instagram anymore? I totally do. Does that make me old? I heard the kids these days are so oves. Tell me your thoughts, I’ll meet you in the comments!
Collage by Emily Zirimis.
