IG Live Shopping | Ideta

Instagram (IG) Live Shopping combines the practice of selling live and shopping. Namely, it allows individuals and businesses to promote, highlight, and sell their products live. What's best, they can do all of that in one place - their Instagram profiles. So, they can sell their products directly from Instagram, and their customers won't have to leave the app to buy them.

Instagram introduced this feature in August 2020, and since then, it has become a hit with both individual sellers and companies.

Intro

In this article, we will write all about IG Live Shopping, including what it is, which features and benefits it offers, how you can organize it, and more. So, if you want to learn more about the feature and use it yourself, read on to learn!

What Is IG Live Shopping

As we mentioned, IG Live Shopping is a feature available on the Instagram app that allows you to sell, promote, and highlight your products live. In other words, you can sell and promote your products while doing an Instagram Live broadcast. With it, business accounts can tag products from their Facebook and Instagram Shop and display them during the live stream. In addition, you can tag a product from your catalog to appear on the bottom of the screen of your live broadcast. That way, your customers will only have to click one link to buy your product.

This feature also allows you to interact with customers, collaborate with other brands and companies, and more. It is an excellent way to keep your younger audience interested and amused.

As more and more people use Instagram nowadays, selling products and services on the app has proven to be highly lucrative for sellers. Not only does it tap into a broad audience, but it also allows customers to buy your products with just one click. Thus, the feature is very convenient and simple to use.

If you want to use Instagram's Live Shopping feature, you must have access to Instagram Checkout. Unfortunately, only US-based creators and brands have access to Instagram Checkout. Consequently, only US-based creators and brands can use IG Live Shopping. Also, only US-based Instagram users can buy products via this feature. You also have to have a business account on Instagram to sell products via this feature.

IG Live Shopping Features

Now that we have covered what IG Live Shopping is and who can use it, let's explore some of its features.

The first feature we will write about is "Video Customization." With it, you can use stickers, filters, and other custom content during your Instagram live stream. You can use premade sets or create your own sets and upload them to your live settings.

You can share photos and videos of your products on the screen during your Instagram live stream. Sharing photos that show what your products look like is a helpful feature to have for sellers. It allows customers to see what your products look like. Also, you can add multiple videos and make a slideshow that you can share during your live stream.

The next feature we will write about is "Product Launch." With this feature, sellers can tag products and notify their customers about new releases. You can also use this feature to set reminders for the products to be launched. An hour before the launch, a countdown will be displayed. After that hour expires, the countdown will disappear, and an "Add to Cart" button will show up in its place.

"Live Rooms" is one of the newer features of IG Live Shopping. It allows you to bring in three more people to your live stream. With it, you can gain more viewers because the people you bring in have their own followers who will also watch your live stream.

The last feature that we will write about is "Pin Topics and Reactions." You can use this feature to pin questions or suggestions from your viewers during your live stream. Doing so, you will ensure that your viewers know what you are currently talking about. Thus, no one will feel lost.

Benefits of IG Live Shopping

IG Live Shopping is an excellent feature for selling products online. To prove that statement, we will list some of the benefits you can reap from it.

For Your Community

With IG Live Shopping, you can communicate and interact with the members of your community in a fun and entertaining way. Also, your fans will be able to ask questions and share their opinions with you in real-time. In other words, your fans will be able to talk to you in a more human and personal way. That way, they will feel more connected to you. Furthermore, they will trust you more and stay loyal to your brand.

Increase Engagement Rate

As we mentioned above, selling and promoting products through IG Live Shopping helps brands and creators stay in touch with their customers and fans. By talking live to your audience, you will be able to show them that you are an actual human that cares about your audience. Also, you will show your customers that you are open to talking about your products and explaining how they work. This transparency can help encourage people to stay engaged and trust you more. Thus, your engagement rate will increase, and so will your loyal customer base.

Influence Marketing

You can use IG Live Shopping to improve your marketing strategy. For example, you can ask your customers what their favorite thing about your brand is and then use that in your marketing strategy. Suppose most of your customers like that you offer free worldwide shipping. If that is the case, you can use that to your advantage by including it in all of your ads, videos, or other marketing segments. That way, your marketing strategy will be more tailored to your customer base because it will emphasize things that they like a lot about your brand.

Gain Credibility

By showing customers how to use your products live, you can ensure that they know that your products are legit and functional. That way, not only will you increase your sales, but you will also show that your products are high quality and worth the money. Also, people will know that you don't sell products that don't work. Thus, you will gain their trust. Also, you will gain credibility, and people will want to work with you more.

Increase Sales

Selling products via IG Live Shopping can help you to boost sales considerably. That is because customers can see what the product looks like, how it's used, and more first before they buy it. Thus, even though they don't see it in person, they will learn a lot about it. Consequently, they will want to buy it.

How to Organize an IG Live Shopping Event?

In this section of the article, we will show you how to organize an IG Live Shopping event. Before setting up an IG Live Shopping event, you must do a few things first:

• The first thing you need to do is set up your Instagram or Facebook Shop and enable Checkout. Also, you should make sure that you add products to your catalog three days before the event. That way, you will be able to tag your products so that your customers can buy them.
• The second thing you need to do is promote your event. That way, your customers will know that you will be live and can tune in. You can promote your event by sharing a link on your other social media profiles.

Once you have completed the two tasks we listed above, you will be ready to sell on IG Live Shopping. To do so, you will need to complete the following steps:

1. The first step you need to do is open Instagram and tap the "Your Story" button in the top-left corner.
2. The second step you need to do is swipe left at the bottom of the screen to toggle Live.
3. The third step you need to do is tap he Shopping bag icon on the left side of the screen. Then, you need to add the products you want to sell and promote.
4. After adding the products that you want, you can tap the Live button and start your stream.
5. You can pin products on your screen during the live. That way, your customers can learn more about them and buy them. However, it would be best to remember that you could only pin one product at a time.

As you can see, setting up an IG Live Shopping event is quick and easy.

3 Best IG Live Shopping Examples

Before we end, we will share with you three of the best IG Live Shopping examples. That way, you will get an idea of what an Instagram live should look like and how it's done. Also, you might find one example that you really like and use it as a guide for your IG Live. So, without further ado, let's dive in!

Aldo

Aldo is a Canadian retail company that sells shoes and accessories all around the world. Even though it has its own stores in multiple worldwide locations, it still uses IG Live Shopping to sell products.

For its first live shopping event, Aldo teamed up with Nate Wyatt ( a TikToker) and Mimi Cuttrell ( a celebrity stylist). During the live stream, Wyatt and Cuttrell shared fashion tips and talked about their favorite Aldo products. Also, viewers were able to browse Aldo's spring catalog while listening to the live stream. So, what was Aldo's strategy here?

Well, Aldo found two popular and well-known celebrities to join their IG Live Shopping event and talk about its products. However, Aldo's strategy was successful because it got the right people to promote their products on the live stream. Namely, both Wyatt and Cuttrell have their own fan bases that came with them to watch the live stream and see what Aldo has to offer. Also, they are a part of the fashion scene in different ways, which also helped a lot.

So, what can we learn from Aldo's experience? If you want to promote and sell products on IG Live Shopping by hiring celebrities or influencers, you need to find people with an audience that fits your brand.

CAIA Cosmetics

CAIA Cosmetics is a beauty company that produces and sells high-quality makeup products. It was founded by Bianca Ingrosso, one of Scandinavia's most popular influencers, Vanessa Lindblad, Jesper Matsch and Mikael Snabb.

CAIA Cosmetics provides makeup tutorials during its live streams. Bianca Ingrosso usually makes those tutorials and uses makeup made by CAIA Cosmetics in them. So, not only does the company promote several products in its live streams, but it also shows people how to use them properly. The CAIA Cosmetics example is an excellent example of a company that increases its engagement and sales by showing its customers how to use its products.

Kiehl's

Kiehl's is an American retail company that sells skin, hair, and body care products. It approaches the process of selling via IG Live Shopping by promoting its live streams ahead of time. In other words, before going live, the company runs a series of ads on its Instagram feed and stories.

The ads had information about the date and time of the live stream so that customers could know when to tune in. Also, the ads promoted the live stream by telling people what they could expect. Namely, Kiehl's runs virtual games and quizzes during its live stream. So, when promoting its live streams, Kiehl's always informs its customers about the games and quizzes.

The ad campaigns worked and helped Kiehl's gain a lot of new customers in 2021 via the campaigns alone.

Conclusion

IG Live Shopping is a powerful feature that all kinds of sellers can use to their advantage. Not only does it allow you to sell and promote products, but it can also help you increase your customer engagement and improve your relationship with customers. As we can see from the examples above, if you do it right, IG Live Shopping can also boost your sales significantly and help you introduce your brand to many new people.

All in all, IG Live Shopping is an excellent feature for selling online. What's more, it is not hard to use and takes only a few minutes to set up. So, if you want to boost your sales, interact with your customers, and gain new ones, you should definitely try out IG Live Shopping as soon as possible.