Dive Brief:
- As social commerce accelerates, Shopify is integrating Shop Pay into Instagram and Facebook, the e-commerce platform announced on Tuesday. The move allows consumers to pay Shopify merchants using Shop Pay on those platforms.
- Shop Pay automatically fills in consumers’ details and allows them to pay without leaving Facebook or Instagram, the company said. Users will also be able to track orders after purchase and see carbon emissions offsets from their purchases, among other things.
- Shop Pay facilitated more than 137 million orders in 2020 and almost $20 billion in gross merchandise value since it launched in 2017. Brands like Allbirds, Kith, Beyond Yoga, Blueland and Jonathan Adler use Shop Pay, per the announcement.
Dive Insight:
One of the pain points with shopping on social media platforms has been the experience of actually buying products, which can often be a clunky process or lead consumers out of the app. Shopify is looking to improve that experience for its merchants by offering consumers an in-app purchasing method that it claims is 70% faster than other checkout systems.
According to Shopify, Shop Pay has a 1.72 times higher conversion rate, leading to fewer abandoned carts for merchants. The platform also lets customers track their purchases, receive updates and oversee their orders, the company said.
The collaboration between Shopify, Instagram and Facebook comes as brands increasingly tap into shoppable content to drive sales. The Interactive Advertising Bureau estimated that 40% of marketers would use shoppable video ads in 2020, an increase from 33% in 2019 and 25% in 2018.
The demand for social shopping has pushed platforms to enhance their own capabilities. Last year, Instagram expanded its in-app shopping features after the initial launch in 2019, and in June, Sephora made its Instagram Checkout debut with Milk Makeup, Drunk Elephant and more than 80 other beauty brands. In October, Instagram also expanded its in-app shopping functionality to Reels and IGTV. The Interactive Advertising Bureau predicted that livestream-generated sales would grow to $120 billion last year.
“People are embracing social platforms not only for connection, but for commerce,” Carl Rivera, general manager of shop at Shopify, said in a press release. “Making Shop Pay available outside of Shopify for the first time means even more shoppers can use the fastest and best checkout on the Internet. And there’s more to come: we’ll continue to work with Facebook to bring a number of Shopify services and products to these platforms to make social selling so much better.”
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