UK’s Gen Z prefers Instagram shopping

According to a survey by data and analytics firm GlobalData about
39% of U.K. online shoppers ages 16 to 24 have used Instagram Shopping to buy a product, indicating the image-sharing platform’s power to drive impulse purchases.

That percentage of Instagram Shopping users is higher than for older age groups, such as 25 to 34 (34%), 35 to 44 (21%) and 45 to 54 (8.4%).

Instagram Shopping is a powerful selling tool because of personalization features, such as letting shoppers follow retailers and hashtags or using the app’s Explore function to discover fresh content, per GlobalData.

Those personalisation features help to create a more customised experience than may be available through a retailer’s website or app, the researcher said.

GlobalData’s research indicates that Instagram has gradually transformed itself from an image-sharing app into a transactional platform.

Instagram Shopping, which lets retailers tag items featured in their posts to indicate that they’re available for purchase, has the power to drive direct-to-consumer sales among consumer groups who use the app to find ideas and inspiration in such product categories as fashion, beauty and interior decorating.

An Instagram presence that includes shoppable tags is becoming essential to sell to young adults who are typically more comfortable than older generations with completing transactions on mobile or social platforms.

Instagram is especially popular with teens, not only in the U.K. Ninety percent of U.S. teens reported using Instagram at least once a month, according to Piper Jaffray’s semiannual “Taking Stock With Teens” survey.

Among the teens surveyed, 70% said they prefer brands to contact them about new products through Instagram, with Snapchat following as the preferred method for brand engagement at about 50%.

As for commerce, Amazon has grown more popular in the past year, with 50% of U.S. teens naming the e-commerce giant as their most preferred shopping site, up from 44% in 2018.

source: http://www.retaildive.com