A Guide to Set Up Your Own Instagram Shop

Small, medium, or big business — now you have equal opportunity with Instagram Shop.

If you still haven’t set it up, you’re risking being left behind! With 1B+ Instagram users every month and 90% of them following a business, let alone 70% of shoppers are looking to Instagram for their next purchase — it's evidently the time to take that step forward.

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“Instagram is dead set on reigning the e-commerce world.”

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So what's so special about Instagram Shop?

It’s a customizable, digital, and shareable catalog of your products on Instagram. You can tag your items for product information and checkout without even leaving the app. This minimizes the chances of losing potential customers as they previously had to navigate to your e-store. Now you bring your store to them, to Instagram.

Here’s your guide to set up your own Instagram Shop:

First and foremost — make sure you’re eligible: how?

#1: Have a business page or convert your account into a business account:

Settings > Account > scroll to the very bottom > Switch To Professional Account

At the end of the process, it may ask you to connect your Facebook page. If you tap 'Log in to Facebook', you can skip the next steps.

#2: Connect your Instagram account to a Facebook Business Page (you must be the Facebook page admin):

Settings > Accounts Centre > Set up Accounts Centre

#3: Meet the Facebook & Instagram Seller agreement & Commerce Eligibility Requirements

And you’re good to go!

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Next steps — upload your product catalog to your Instagram store.

You can either insert your products manually into Facebook Business Catalog Manager or through an e-commerce platform. You can select a partner here. In both options, start by going to Commerce Manager:

• Option A - Manually: Click Get Started > Create Catalog > Select Ecommerce > Assign this catalog to your Business Manager account > Enter catalog name > Create
• Option B - Ecommerce Platform: Open the Catalog tab > Data Sources > Add Items > Use a Partner Platform > Next > choose partner > connect platform to your Facebook account

Then you need to:

1. Submit your account for review. It might take a few days however there are times where it might run longer.
2. Instagram will notify you once approved. Then go to your Instagram Settings > Business > Shopping > Select the product catalog > Done.

NB: Even though Checkout is only available to all eligible US businesses however they do have long-term plans to make Checkout available to businesses beyond the US.

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We're aware it might've felt like a never-ending process to make it here but you're nearly done.

Last but not least — tag your products in your posts and stories to optimize your content. It's super quick and easy. Upload an image (or carousel) and once you're done editing it, tag your product just like you tag people. For insta stories, you simply add the Product Sticker and then choose the respective item from your catalog.

Et voila!