Instagram’s aggressive push into ecommerce shows no signs of reversing. This morning, the Facebook subsidiary announced the launch of a new feature that notifies users when upcoming products become available.
“With more of … shopping moments happening on Instagram, we wanted to make it easier for people to discover and follow upcoming product launches from brands and creators they love,” wrote Instagram in a blog post. “The product launch sticker in Instagram Stories and product launch tag in feed lets people set reminders for the launch date, preview product details and buy as soon as a product is available without leaving Instagram.”
It’s currently in beta, with a limited number of brands participating. Here’s the full list:
- Adidas
- Anastasia Beverly Hills
- Balmain
- Benefit
- Chinatown Market
- Fresh Prince
- H&M
- Highsnobiety
- Huda Beauty
- JE11
- Levi’s
- MAC
- Michael Kors
- Mr. Porter
- NARS
- Net-A-Porter
- NYX
- Outdoor Voices
- Revolve
- Soul Cycle
- Warby Parker
The new notifier builds on Instagram Checkout, which launched in March. With Checkout, users can view products from a brand’s past shopping post, select from various options such as size or color, and proceed to payment without leaving Instagram. The app saves relevant info like names, emails, and shipping addresses, and it helpfully delivers notifications about shipment and delivery.
More recently, Instagram debuted Shop the Look from creators, which enables Instagram users to tag products in their posts. Both creators and tagged brands receive shared insights within the social network, including details analytics about the performance of shopping posts.
Instagram has the reach to more than justify its shopping pivot. More than a billion people use Instagram every month, and over 500 million of them use it every day. And according to some studies, over a third of have used their mobile to purchase a product online, making them 70% more likely to do so than non-users.