Instagram Launches Ecommerce Drive

 Following efforts from its parent company Facebook to introduce ecommerce to social media, Instagram has followed suit. The image-based platform will now allow retailers to show prices and product descriptions within an image's caption. The idea is currently only at the testing stage, where Instagram has started working with a small group of US retailers to try out the new feature. James Quarles from Instagram, said that the new stance on ecommerce aimed to take users from “the shop window to the cash register with missing steps in between”. The platform is hoping to grow the impact of ecommerce within the service, to one day allow users across the globe to see product prices and descriptions, request samples, and save items for purchase later. Instagram has said that the current iteration of the feature “is an early version”, but that it hopes it becomes a “place for businesses and brands to connect”.

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