How to Set Up an Instagram Shop and Move From Likes to Sales

Instagram Shop is one of the easiest and most prominent ways to sell products directly on Instagram.

With the significant rise in media content like reels and stories, Instagram has become a favorite social media platform for many. And there are no signs of trend reversal because every day, the number of people opening accounts on Instagram is increasing.

The Instagram shop is pretty straightforward. Its free to set up, and your customers can directly purchase without leaving the platform.

That’s why we’ve created a step-by-step guide on how to set up an Instagram shop and turn your likes into sales.

What is an Instagram Shop?

Instagram shops offer access to features that let people shop your brand’s photos and videos. It provides a customizable e-commerce storefront for visitors to explore your products and shop directly on your business profile.

Businesses can add a collection of products for their shop to help customers find the products they want to buy. Then, you can easily add the relevant descriptions and pricing for your product items. Finally, there are shopping tags that feature products that users can buy from your website or in the app.

To boost your business visibility, Instagram allows you to create and run ads using the Instagram Ads Manager. And that’s how you can increase post engagement and clicks and drive more product conversions.

Instagram also provides a product launch feature for businesses that opt for the Instagram checkout method. It’s an excellent way for businesses to announce their product launches on Instagram, and people can purchase your items as soon as it is available for sale.

Benefits of Using Instagram Shop

Free: Opening an account on Instagram is free. Within the Instagram app, you can create an online store to make it easier for customers to buy your products.

Reach: Looking at the Instagram statistics, there’s no doubt that it’s one of the most widely used social media platforms. With a whopping of users, you have tremendous opportunities to reach your buyer audience and sell your products or merchandise. Nowadays, with good use of Instagram reels, it’s easier to get thousands of views and reach millions of Instagram users within a few hours of video launch.

Visual Marketing: Visuals engage the audience, and Instagram makes it easy to sell products with the help of videos and images. You can sell products through reels and Instagram stories and establish a strong brand presence as you get more likes and shares for your content. Highly liked posts with shopping tags also increase your chances of getting found on Instagram’s Explore page.

Buyer Experience: Customers can purchase a company’s products through Instagram’s in-app browser without being redirected to another page, offering seamless shopping.

Eligibility Criteria and Requirements

Setting up an Instagram shop is free and easy. Here’s a step-by-step guide on setting up an Instagram shop and submitting it for review.

But first things first. Let’s see the basic requirements for setting up a shop and selling products on Instagram.

Eligibility criteria And Requirements:

1. Your business is located in a supported market
2. Your business has an eligible product
3. You adhere to the commerce policies and merchant agreement of Instagram. 
4. Your business has a website domain that contains products listed for purchase from your Instagram shop. 
5. Your Instagram profile is a business or creator account connected to your Facebook Page.

How to Set up Instagram Shop

Once you meet all the eligibility criteria, it becomes easier to set up an Instagram shop. Let’s get started with the step-by-step guide.

Step 1: Create a Business Profile on Instagram

In order to create a business account, you’ll first need to convert your current Instagram account.

Here’s how you can do it:

1. From your Instagram profile, click on the menu icon with the three lines in the top right corner.
2. Select Settings and click on Switch to a professional account. If you don’t see this option, go to Accounts and click continue.
3. Pick a business category and click Done.
4. Confirm your choice by clicking OK and tap on Business.
5. In the next window, add your contact information.

Complete adding relevant information like business name, opening hours, closing hours, phone number, and business address, and link the profile to your business website.

Step 2: Connect to a Facebook Page

If you have an existing Facebook page, you can link it to your Instagram business account or create a new Facebook page.

1. Go to your Business’s Instagram profile.
2. Navigate to Edit profile.
3. Go to Public Business information section, and select Page
4. Choose a Facebook Page from your Pages that you’d like to connect.
5. If you don’t have a Facebook Page, select Create a new Facebook Page.

Step 3: Upload Product Catalog

It’s time to add a product catalog that powers your Instagram Shop page. You can do this in two ways:

Catalog Manager: You can use the Facebook Business Manager to add all the items that you’re planning to sell on Instagram Shop.

eCommerce Platform Partners: Use Facebook-integrated platforms like Wix, Shopify, and BigCommerce to add products.

Step 4: Submit the Account for Review

To start selling on Instagram Shop, you need to review your account. Here’s how you can do it.

1. Go to Settings and sign up for shopping.
2. Complete all the steps.
3. Submit the account for review.

Wait for a few days and keep an active eye on notifications. Sometimes Instagram may ask for additional information to prove ownership of your website domain.

Step 5: Enable Shopping

Once your account is approved after review, you can enable the shopping features by going into your business Instagram profile.

1. Go to Settings and tap Shopping.
2. Select Product Catalogue and click Done.

Shopping won’t appear in your settings if your account is still being reviewed or hasn’t been approved.

As soon as the review is complete, your Instagram Shop will be automatically added to your profile.

Ways to Grow an Instagram Shop

As mentioned earlier, creating an account and setting up a new Instagram shop is easy. The tricky part is to increase your reach and grow your business organically.

Here are some of the best ways to grow your Instagram shop.

#1. Run Ads

Running Instagram shopping ads is one of the fastest ways to boost sales from your newly created Instagram shop. You can create ad campaigns using the Instagram Ads Manager, which is accessible from the Facebook Ads account.

Here you can create two types of advertisements.

The first one is the ads with product tags only. Another is ads with product tags and checkout.

Creating shoppable ads is a great way to attract new customers to your Instagram profile and engage them with your content. If you convert your Instagram profile to a professional account, you can even boost feed posts, reels, and stories in the form of ads.

By allowing users to purchase directly from your mobile shop, you’re enabling them to take advantage of in-the-moment purchases. Remember to include high-quality product photos, tags, and hashtags to make the most of this valuable retail space. 

#2. Influencer Marketing

In addition to your own Instagram Shopping ads, you should collaborate with an influencer. Influencers can, for example, create a special collection of products from your catalog to share with their followers.

Instagram’s engagement with creators’ content is much higher than Facebook’s. This sets up a perfect ground for collaborating with content creators in your product market niche. 

By leveraging an influencer’s reach, you can widen your product reach to unchartered territories. A product detail page appears after Instagram users tag products on their posts (influencers, for example) so prospects can see as much visual information about the item as possible.

#3. Discounts

Offering discounts is a traditional way to attract new customers. Although there is no direct way to add a discount functionality on the Instagram shop, you can offer discount coupons in posts.

You can use creatives highlighting the discount code on your posts, stories, and reels. You can even ask your partner influencer to create a unique coupon code, so it becomes easier for you to track the sales bought in by any individual influencer.

There’s also an option to submit unique discount codes on coupon code websites if you think that’s allowed for your business. Generally, discount coupon websites have a huge number of visitors, making it easy for you to distribute discount codes

#5. Referral Bonus

Another effective way of growing your Instagram shop is to run a referral bonus program where you offer some commissions to anyone who brings in sales for you. Think of it as refer and earn program or affiliate marketing for your products.

For example, if you offer a 20% referral bonus, you might make less profit. But if you build an extensive network of affiliate marketers that promote your product, you’ll end up making more money. Because now, you have an extra volume of sales that keeps increasing referred by marketers and influencers.

Although the idea of a referral bonus lures everyone, making it successful is an ongoing process. To simplify things for your affiliates, keep adding new brand assets and run promotional campaigns so they can easily promote your business.

Summary

Instagram is free and currently the most used social media platform. It’s full of influencers as well as prospective buyers. If you’re anyone who uses Instagram daily, you can think of converting your post likes to product sales.

Although it may sound complex and a lot of work initially, you’ll gain confidence. And who knows what’ll be the results if you try hard to succeed using Instagram shop for your business.

If this article bought you some value, we’re sure you’ll love reading more about making money on Instagram.