Today, we're announcing a significant step forwards for shopping: checkout. Checkout makes it quick and secure for people to buy the products they discover on Instagram.

Since our earliest days, people on Instagram have loved to shop. They revel in the joy of discovering those perfect suede boots, obsessing over beauty tutorials or snatching up one-of-a-kind trainers from an exclusive drop. Instagram is a place for people to treat themselves with inspiration, not a place to tax themselves with errands. It's a place to experience the pleasure of shopping over the chore of buying. We build everything with this in mind.

To make things easier for people who love to shop, we've introduced a number of updates in the last year, including product tags in feed, product stickers in Stories and a shopping destination in Explore. People told us that they wanted more time and space before buying, so we made it easy to save and share products. As a result, we now have 130 million Instagrammers tapping to reveal product tags in shopping posts each month.¹

As we've continued to invest in shopping, we've heard feedback from our community that they want to do even more. When they get that spark of inspiration, people want to do what's right for them, whether it's saving a product for later, sharing it with a friend for feedback or buying it then and there.

Checkout enhances the shopping experience by making the purchase simple, convenient and secure. People no longer have to navigate to the browser when they want to buy. And with their protected payment information in one place, they can shop their favourite brands without needing to log in and enter their information multiple times.

One of the first businesses that people in the US will be able to buy from is Revolve.

Nike, which has pushed the boundaries with their creative approach to Stories, will also open up checkout to their community.

Burberry, which has embraced exclusive drops to build hype, will also be one of more than 20 leading brands that users can buy from within the app.

Over the course of the coming weeks, people in the US will be able to check out with Adidas, Anastasia Beverly Hills, Balmain, Burberry, ColourPop, Dior, Huda Beauty, H&M, Kith, KKW Beauty, Kylie Cosmetics, MAC Cosmetics, Michael Kors, Mr. Porter, NARS, Net-a-Porter, Nike, NYX Cosmetics, Oscar de la Renta, Outdoor Voices, Ouai Hair, Prada, Revolve, Uniqlo, Warby Parker and Zara. Too see an up-to-date list of the handles using checkout, please look here.

Checkout is just one part of our long-term investment in shopping. We're excited to introduce even more ways for people to enjoy shopping on Instagram this year.

People will be able to pay with Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Discover and PayPal. For brands, access to checkout will be limited during this closed beta. When we expand, businesses will be able to integrate directly or work with partners including Shopify, BigCommerce, ChannelAdvisor, CommerceHub and more in the future. Payments will be processed in partnership with PayPal.