Insta-Pay: Instagram Offers One-Stop Shopping

You can catch the full Fintech Insider take on the news today at 4pm on the podcast here.

Following on from a great response last week we’re going to be doing another close look at the most interesting story of the week’s show. Again you can let us know in the comments below or at our community site, Fintech Insider News.

Fintech Insider hosts Sarah and Ross sit down with Daniel Hegarty, CEO and Co-Founder of Habito, and Nina Mohanty, Business Development at Bud to discuss the news, including what might just be the next stage of online shopping.

You can catch the full Fintech Insider take on the news today at 4pm on the podcast here. Better yet, subscribe to the podcast and never miss an episode. We decided to focus on a major story that isn't already on the tip of everyone's tongue. Instagram just put out a stealth release of a native payments feature to its app. So we’re going to take a closer look at what’s going on with the social media giant.

Instant Payment with Instagram

There’s an awful lot of shopping that could happen in a one click fashion - Sarah Kocianski

Instagram has a USP of zero embedded links in images. #linkinbio is synonymous with online shops, influencers, and content creators Instagram accounts. It keeps users grounded on the app at all times unless they really go out of their way to leave. Unfortunately, this manoeuvre made it impossible for companies to effectively sell products via Instagram, it’s a great marketing platform and you’d be hard pressed to find a company today that doesn’t have an account. Even we do @11FSteam.

A lot of people are rightfully worried about their security - Nina Mohanty

Breaking Barriers

Now, thanks to the new payments solution, companies and customers will be able to transact the second someone sees something they want. But that could lead to some interesting impulse purchases. It’s a relatively simple concept for consumers, all they need to do is add a debit or credit card to their profile, add a security pin, and they’re ready to shop.

Anything that breaks down the barrier between consumers and providers is favoured - Daniel Hegarty

And what a shop it is, as of April 2018, Instagram has over 25 million business profiles. Instagram brought in an estimated $4 billion in revenue in 2017, sitting pretty at 20% of Facebook’s total revenue. Running payments through the social media company is likely to raise its revenue share considerably.

Staggering Stats

800 million. That’s the total number of normal Instagram accounts, 500 million of them are active on the site every single day. That’s a massive customer-base for any company, and now they’re set to be only one-click away from purchasing products or booking events.
For now, everything seems impressive about Instagram integrating a payments system. But the Facebook family is notoriously slow at rolling out this sort of initiative so it’s anyone’s guess when tapping to buy on Instagram will be a daily occurance. Don’t forget to subscribe to the Fintech Insider podcast here and comment below with any insights you’ve got to share or join the Fintech Insider News community here.