Last Tuesday (14), Instagram announced that it will close the “live shopping”, feature of the platform launched in 2020 that allows content creators to mark and sell products during live broadcasts. The tool is another one of Meta’s long list of creations implemented on social networks to encourage online purchases that are now being discontinued by the company.
According to Instagram, the platform’s “live purchases” will stop working from March 16, but this is the only feature of real-time broadcasts that will change. Options such as inviting people to join your broadcast or even hold a live q&A session will still be available.
In addition, Instagram’s “shopping” features will also remain intact, enabling people to set up and run a store on the platform to sell their products online.
According to the social network, this one-off change to discontinue the “live shopping” was decided precisely because it “will help to focus on products and features that add more value to our users”, which leaves clues that the engagement in relation to the tool currently does not correspond to what is expected.
Goal does not emplaca purchasing features
Born in the midst of the pandemic, Instagram’s “live shopping” feature has been launched to boost online sales of the social network.
Along with product tags that already existed in tools such as feed, Stories and Reels, live tags can help companies instantly interact with users, and humanize the brand before customers.
The novelty, however, seems not to have been as successful as expected. And after the end of social seclusion, Meta’s own investment for the online sales industry seems not to have lived up to expectations.
Proof of this is that in October last year, the company decided to shut down Facebook’s “live shopping” feature and, later this month, intends to discontinue the “shopping” tab of Instagram.
With yesterday’s announcement, another platform sales tool comes to an end, showing that the company’s efforts may now be deposited elsewhere.
Despite this, Meta states that “purchases” are still an investment sector for the company, especially with regard to advertising and shopping ads.