Nordstrom and Target are teaming up with Curalate to create Like2Buy, a platform that allows Instagram users to purchase items that they like on their news feeds.
Essentially, users will be able to click on a retailers profile and scroll through items until they find something that they would like to buy. They then simply click through to go straight to the retailers website where they can purchase the item.
"We connect with more than 500,000 customers on Instagram by posting items we hope they find inspirational, beautiful and fun," said Bryan Galipeau, social media director at Nordstrom. "Like2Buy enhances the experience for customers who want to take the next step and learn more about the great fashion we're featuring, to make a purchase or save items for another time."
To date Instagram has been difficult for retailers to monetize. The platform does not allow for links on individual posts, meaning retailers have so far been unable to link customers from separate pictures to buy a product.
"It's been a customer pain point," continued Galipeau. "When we would post these images, pretty much every time we'd get questions like: 'Is this still available? What size? What does it cost?' "
Many other social media websites lend themselves much more easily to ecommerce. For example, Pinterest allows users to build up a kind of wish list of items that they want. Instagram, however, is very different. Instagram is simply a stream of photos without any information related to the photos.
Despite this, Instagram has a very large user base, with 200 million users actively using the platform. Around 60 million photos are shared per day.
"There's an enormous audience here that is very engaged in what these brands are pushing out," said Apu Gupta, CEO and co-founder of Curalate. "Like2Buy makes it very easy for consumers to engage with a product and buy quickly."
Curalate launched a platform called Fanreel last year, which allowed brands to incorporate fan images into their websites and product pages. Around 50 brands took part in Fanreel, including Urban Outfitters and Wet Seal.
Like2Buy will be available to any of the 450 brands that use Curalate, including Gap and Target. It is already active on Nordstrom's product page, and will launched on Target's within the next few days.
"This has been live for 24 hours, and the initial feedback has been pretty positive," said Galipeau of the launch of the product. "It's, 'why didn't I think of that?' "
