10/21/2014 Buy What You 'Like': You Can Now Shop Straight From Instagram

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RETAIL (/RETAIL) 8/28/2014 @ 9:21AM 18,367 views

Buy What You 'Like': You CanNow Shop StraightFrom Instagram

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For retailers, three year old photo-sharing site Instagram has proven abonanza, with fans ‘liking’ and commenting on product images inunprecedented numbers.

Clare O'Connor (http://www.forbes.com/sites/clareoconnor/) Forbes StaffThe consumer economy: retail, and the people reinventing it.

10/21/2014 Buy What You 'Like': You Can Now Shop Straight From Instagram

http://www.forbes.com/sites/clareoconnor/2014/08/28/buy-what-you-like-you-can-now-shop-straight-from-instagram/ 2/5

According to analytics and marketing platform

Curalate, social media users interact with brands on

Instagram 58 times more than they do on Facebook

(http://www.forbes.com/facebook-ipo/), and a

whopping 120 times more than on Twitter

(/companies/twitter/) TWTR +0.3% (/companies/twitter/) .

But for retailers, Instagram has proven difficult to

monetize. The photo app doesn’t allow links on

individual posts. For example, over 15,100 of

Nordstrom's (/companies/nordstrom/)

JWN +2.07% (/companies/nordstrom/) 532,000+ Instagram

followers pressed ‘like’ on a photo of colorful

Christian Louboutin heels

(http://instagram.com/p/r239S9G9eM/?

modal=true) in late August.

But if any of those fans wanted to immediately buy

that pair of $1400 shoes, they’d be out of luck.

They’d have to leave Instagram and dig around on

their own on Nordstrom’s site to find the pumps, or

— more likely — just head to Google

(/companies/google/) GOOGL +0.71% (/companies/google/) or

abandon the search entirely.

“It’s been a customer pain point,” said Bryan

Galipeau, social media director at Nordstrom.

“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?’”

Nordstrom’s social media team would reply to individual comments

underneath posts of clothing and accessories, giving potential buyers the

relevant item numbers. This proved time consuming, to say the least.

Now, a solution: Nordstrom is the first retailer to roll out Like2Buy, a new

service that makes Instagram shoppable developed by Curalate.

Billed as the “missing link” between traffic and revenue

(http://www.curalate.com/solutions/Like2Buy/), the technology allows fans

to click the one link Instagram permits (atop a brand’s profile page) then

displays an elegant grid of all the items up for sale from the retailer’s feed. One

more click takes a user to the store’s secure mobile site.

Like2Buy also functions as a curation tool for shoppers. By ‘liking’ a photo of a

handbag, or lipstick, or anything, Instagrammers can create their own wishlist

or save products to buy later.

10/21/2014 Buy What You 'Like': You Can Now Shop Straight From Instagram

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As well as Nordstrom, major retailers already signed

up to use Like2Buy include Target

(/companies/target/) TGT +2.31% (/companies/target/) and

Charlotte Russe. For the latter, with its demographic

of mobile-savvy teen girls, the platform represents

an important advancement.

“Our shopper is using social media to influence

purchases,” said Kristen Strickler, social media and

PR manager at the fast fashion brand. “And the

more steps they have to take to buy something, the

more it drops off.”

Strickler adds that Charlotte Russe shoppers have responded particularly well

to photos of “product laydowns”, to use industry parlance (see the above photo

for an example, tagged with #OOTD – Outfit Of The Day – a popular

Instagram hashtag for fashion lovers).

“Across the board, millenials respond to those the most,” said Strickler.

“That’s how they would put together a look on the hanger, or on the floor the

night before they wear it.”

Now, Charlotte Russe and brands of its ilk can finally see some real return on

investment for these carefully created Instagram outfits.

“Making Instagram shoppable is something we’ve been wanting to do for a

long time,” she said. “Fans have been constantly asking.”

Nordstrom’s Bryan Galipeau sees Like2Buy as a step in the right direction for

social media personalization. “This has been live for 24 hours, and the initial

feedback has been pretty positive,” he said. “It’s, ‘why didn’t I think of that?’”

5 Promising Photo Apps You Should Know

1 of 5

(http://www.forbes.com/pictures/mlf45ehhmf/cinemagram­2/)

PuddingPudding is South Korea’s answer to Instagram. Hugely

popular in Asia, with 77% of its 2 million users based in

the region, Pudding has had over 4 millions photos

uploaded to it since its February launch. The app's