BigCommerce was one of the first adopters in social commerce.
We’ve written before about the fast rise of social commerce, where products are purchased directly within a social app like Facebook or Instagram rather than in a merchant’s store site. Today we’ll drill down to look at how one of the major e-commerce platforms, BigCommerce, supports e-commerce sales on Instagram Shopping and Checkout.
When Instagram first rolled out its shoppable posts (and before Checkout was introduced in 2019), the back-end solutions were limited. But BigCommerce was an early partner and one of the first e-commerce platforms to offer native integration between a store’s product catalog, Facebook, and the Instagram app. As such, BigCommerce has had time to work out any bugs and to make the BigCommerce Channel Manager perform its job smoothly.
Selling on Instagram starts with Facebook.
Since Instagram is owned by Facebook, its e-commerce technology is shared between the two platforms. (Why duplicate when it’s all connected anyway?) The assumption is that if you want to sell on Instagram, you’re already selling on Facebook. Therefore your Instagram product feed is pulled through your Facebook business account. BigCommerce users enjoy the convenience of a channel integration feature, meaning that you don’t have to separately upload your product lists to Facebook. A BigCommerce store that’s connected to Facebook allows you to tag products from your catalog onto Instagram photos. Connect your store’s products with Facebook using BigCommerce’s Channel Manager.
First came Shoppable Posts. In these, products placed within a photo “scene” are tagged with their name and price, like in the Target example below.
By deploying BigCommerce’s native integration with Facebook Commerce Manager, retailers could connect their catalog to Instagram. Clicking on those sends a user directly to your store for purchase.
Then came Instagram Checkout. First available only in the US but now in more than 70 countries, Instagram Checkout creates a seamless consumer experience where a user can purchase the products they discover on Instagram without ever leaving the app. BigCommerce promptly updated its Channel Manager integration so store owners can opt for payment processing through Checkout on Instagram instead of at the storefront. The new integration will set up your Facebook Pixel, catalog, and Shop using Facebook’s onboarding tool to connect your BigCommerce store. It also allows you to use your own Facebook Business Manager account (a step that was omitted in the previous version). This gives merchants better control over their catalog and product data, and how that gets used in the Facebook ecosystem.
Customers can now discover products you’re selling on Instagram from the BigCommerce store catalog. And they can check out within Instagram using PayPal, Visa, Mastercard, American Express or Discover.
After placing an order, customers never have to even visit your store’s site for further information. They can use the Instagram app to view order status and estimated delivery date, get the tracking number, cancel orders, initiate returns, or seek out customer support. They’re encouraged to store their payment credentials within the app, just like with Google or Apple Pay, to streamline future transactions.
Marketing support galore for selling on Instagram
Checkout has another feature that encourages Instagram creators to tag a brand’s products on their behalf, launch products directly on Instagram, and sell products in Instagram Live.
And BigCommerce also offers some convenient ways to build your e-commerce business selling on Instagram. For example, they’ve provided free research with examples of successful strategies used by other merchants on the platform, to save you some time finding the winners. There is a catalog of 80 Instagram Shopping examples from some of the highest-performing sellers, so you can do your own deconstructing and take inspiration. Some Big Commerce customers who used Instagram Shopping in the beta stage saw 4-digit increases in sales and traffic.
Selling on Instagram Stories
They may only last for 24 hours, but Instagram Stories are a wildly popular feature of the platform and the perfect place to tell stories about your brand.
This is another utility available to BigCommerce users. Starting from your Channel Manager, all you need to do is navigate to Facebook and sync your inventory to Facebook Shop, if you haven’t already. Once your inventory is approved by Facebook, you can then place product stickers for Instagram Shopping on Stories.
Of course, there are other social media channels available besides Instagram and Facebook Shops. Facebook Ads and Buyable Pins on Pinterest are just two examples. Shoppingfeed’s BigCommerce extension integrates with all the major marketplaces, shopbots and search engine ads, using your single source feed to sync with each platform’s unique listing requirements. For a truly multi-channel selling operation, you might prefer to scale up using an extension like ours for your BigCommerce store.
