Pros and Cons of Instagram Shop (IG Shop)

Instagram is no doubt one of the most recognisable social media platforms for tech-savvy and general users. With more and more options available to users, it’s become more than just a place for content creation and leisure. More people have turned to Instagram’s “Shop” function to open and grow their business online. Let’s look at the pros & cons below:

High Click Rate 

With over 500 million users across the platform daily, “Instagram Shop” boasts high profile views and click-through rates. Your products can quickly gain exposure among your customers, which increases your chance of making a deal.

Simple, Quick, Low-Cost 

Just type in your contact information and name to open an IG account, and you can create your own IG shop within a minute! It’s as quick, simple and low-cost.

Instagram Webpage 

Now that you’re familiar with the above, did you also know that Carousell also has premium seller tools in the form of CarouBiz to optimize the buying and selling experience on our marketplace? Let’s look at the advantages of using one of the largest classified marketplace and the differences between Carousell and Instagram Shop: 

CarouBiz

1. AI and systematic categorization  

Instagram Shop allows sellers to utilize the hashtag function to categorise pictures and products. However, since hashtags are created by users, it lacks a unified system.  For example, when a customer wants to buy sports shoes, should they search for the hashtag of “shoes”/”sports shoes”/”sports shoes”? Often, products that belong to the same category do not end up in the same categorized hashtag. 

On the contrary, Carousell divides products into seven major categories and over 30 subcategories through our unique AI implementation. Users and customers can easily find the right items through browsing different categories. In addition, CarouBiz users can create custom collections for their own products on their personal profiles. For instance, they can create collections to display “newest products”, “promotional offers”, etc. Custom collections can save buyers’ time and effort when shopping.

Main categories and sub-categories on Carousell

2. Maintenance 

Maintaining an Instagram Shop can be tough because of the competitiveness on the platform. In addition, without the option to pin products (posts) to the top, older products can sink to the bottom of the webpage and lose visibility easily. Maintaining an Instagram Shop can be time costly especially with the need to update and post constantly to promote products to build competitiveness around the platform’s algorithm. 

Sellers on Carousell can Bump and Spotlight their products with Carousell Coins. This allows sellers to promote any of their items (including older) items in just a few clicks! Sellers can also make use of the Profile Promotion tool to select five products that they want to promote specifically, and attract more buyers to their store!

Bump                        

Profile Promotion 

Example: @lynnbeauty1987’s profile promotion

As we pride ourselves on being customer-oriented, there are even more features and services, besides the ones mentioned above that you can enjoy. Know more about CarouBiz here!