Popular social media app – Instagram – has got a new feature which allows you to make payments and buy products directly in the app. This will make your shopping experience delightful. If you wish to add your card details, then you should be able to see it under Settings in the app. This allows you to add debit or credit card information, even lets you track previous payments. You can even set a pin for extra security.
With this update, you now do not have to leave the Instagram app to make payments. This feature in the Facebook-owned social media hand comes after the payments feature was made readily available to the Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp. The payments feature on Instagram is a late addition as its rival Snapchat had added Snapcash, a native payments solution, earlier. It’s another effort to support businesses and advertising on the photo-sharing platform.
It should be noted that the scope of payments on Instagram will not be as diverse as WhatsApp. On WhatsApp, you could transfer money to other contacts and even pay for goods and services you buy offline. This new feature is not visible to all the Instagram users. Some of the users in the US have it while some in the UK don’t. However, there has not being any update on the service coming to India yet.
Earlier you could already shop and purchase items at a retailer’s online site inside Instagram, opening a separate pop-out page and following normal online checkout processes. Now users can skip the extra steps and purchase the item all from the Instagram post. It’s another effort to support businesses and advertising on the photo-sharing platform. The Facebook-owned Instagram has been building out its ad model to allow businesses and brands to advertise products seamlessly in a user’s content stream.
The feature is currently available only for a select group of partners, including online restaurant reservation site Resy, according to an Instagram spokesperson. It’s part of an update announced last year to allow for appointment booking in the app.