Since expanding shopping on Instagram to more countries in March, businesses all over the world have been able to connect with customers in a fresh, immersive way on Instagram—giving them more opportunities to showcase their products while allowing consumers to explore the brands they love. In June, we announced that we were bringing shopping to Instagram Stories through a test with a small number of businesses.

Today, we are giving all businesses approved for shopping on Instagram access to Shopping in Stories and launching the test of a Shopping Channel in Explore.

With more than 90 million accounts tapping to reveal tags in shopping posts on Instagram every month,¹ Instagram has quickly become a shopping destination unlike anywhere else. That's because Instagram allows shoppers to visually explore all of their favorite products and stumble upon new ones that inspire them.

To give people a faster way to shop on Instagram Stories, we are enabling businesses to add product stickers in stories, so they can easily integrate products into their stories content.³ Instagram Stories has seen rapid growth in adoption among consumers, with more than 400 million accounts using the feature daily.⁴ People love stories for its immersive, full-screen format, and one-third of the most-viewed stories are from businesses.⁵ Now, businesses that are approved to use the shopping feature can meet more shoppers where they are in a meaningful way.

Businesses that are approved and set up to use shopping will now be able to add one product sticker to any story⁶ with customizable text color. When a shopper taps on a product sticker, they'll be taken to the same product details page that they see when they tap on a shopping post in feed. There, they'll be able to see additional product images, details and similar items, as well as a link to the business's mobile site to make a purchase.

With more than 200 million Instagram accounts visiting Explore every day,⁷ it's a powerful surface where people can actively dive deeper into their interests. Shopping is one of the interests they want to discover when they come to Explore, and we're learning how to personalize brands and products to each shopper's tastes. This creates a more relevant and enjoyable shopping experience for consumers, and helps brands put their products in front of the right customers.

In addition to the expansion of product stickers in stories, we're also testing a topic channel for shopping in Explore.⁸ The shopping channel will be based on each user's specific shopping interests and will display shopping posts from a variety of businesses that the user may like, giving them the opportunity to discover new businesses. The shopping channel in Explore is currently testing and will roll out globally over the coming weeks.

As more and more people visit Instagram to shop the brands and products they love, we'll continue to explore new ways to enhance the overall shopping experience on Instagram.

To learn more about these new ways to shop on Instagram, visit our shopping on Instagram page and read how to get started with an Instagram business account.