Instagram Shopping for ART
It is now possible to create a shop on Instagram where your followers may tap on the image and continue to your website from there.
You may have up to five different products promoted from one image. For example, let’s say you sell shoes. You may have five images of shoes on one post with five different options to tap on and buy.
In our case, we are selling artwork and publications.
As I write this, I must say that setting up a shop on Instagram is somewhat convoluted.
First, not everyone who sets one up is granted the shop on Instagram. The shop has to be created first in Facebook Business Pages. You may add products manually or by feeding them data from a site such as ours which is hosted on Squarespace. Here is a link to how to set one up using a Squarespace feed.
Sometimes, products are not approved because Facebook is the interface behind the Instagram shop.
If you are a Figurative Artist, you may find that Facebook may think you are selling adult products and will not approve the sale of the product. Therefore the linking on the product will not be active. This happens often in our feed.
Instagram shopping only works on the app itself.
If you are viewing the products on a desktop, the tapping and linking will not work. So you have to revert back to the app to tap and find out further information about the product and to complete the sale.
You may link to any website which offers online shopping.
For example, I have few posts linking to Artsy, Artnet, and Saatchi Online. See post of Brianna Lee’s painting above as an example of how I linked to Artnet.
The biggest challenge I have is to get followers to actually tap on the image and follow the link. I think they are just not enough art galleries using it yet for followers to know what to do with it, although we have already made a few sales from our Instagram shop.
I have also been creative and offered incentives to followers to tap on products and receive discounts and in some cases free art.
It’s been a challenge at times with all the obstacles, but I think eventually more galleries will open up shop to reach younger art collectors who appreciate technology.
Other galleries and museums are starting to use the shop feature.
The MEAM in Barcelona is now linking to their catalogs on their posts. Every Day Original also has opened shop.
I’d like to see other online venues which sell art start using the shop. Let’s start tagging our shops with #instagramshopart and I will follow.
Link to Didi’s original article here.