Tag Archive for: social shopping

Instagram is launching a new feature called “Payments in Chat”, though the name undersells the actual capabilities of the feature.

As announced via Meta’s Newsroom, the Payments in Chat feature will allow online businesses to collect payments directly from customers through the chat tool. But, more than that, the tool will enable companies to completely handle the sales process through chat – including answering customers’ questions, creating new purchase orders, managing payments, and even tracking product shipments.

As the announcement explains:

“We want to help people start conversations with businesses they care about and help them find and buy products they love in an easy, seamless experience, right from the chat thread.”

How It Works

To make Payments in Chat possible, the new feature uses Meta Pay – the company’s first-party payment processing service. This keeps the process streamlined, allowing shoppers to make purchases in just a few taps while providing secure data transmission and purchase protection.

Using this service, customers are able to initiate a chat with a company representative to ask questions about a potential purchase, checkout, pay for the purchase, and track its shipment to your home without ever leaving Instagram’s chat.

When combined with Instagram Shops, the new Payment in Chat feature makes it possible for shoppers to go from discovering a new product to buying it with just a few taps or without the need to ever leave the platform.

Twitter is signaling its plans to let brands establish dedicated shops on the platform through a limited test.

The company revealed it is introducing dedicated shopping pages including up to 50 products to a handful of brands as an experiment ahead of plans to roll out the feature to more retailers later this year. 

The feature allows a brand or business to add a simple “View shop” button to its profile page, which will link to a Twitter-hosted e-commerce page. When clicked, the button will then take users to your actual online store or website, where the transaction can be completed. 

As Twitter described the new feature in its blog post announcement:

“People are already talking about products on Twitter. We want Twitter Shops to be the home for merchants on Twitter where they can intentionally curate a catalog of products for their Twitter audience and build upon the product discussions already happening on our service by giving shoppers a point of action where a conversation can become a purchase.”

Only Available to a Select Few

As Twitter Shops are currently considered a beta test, the feature is only available to a small number of brands in the U.S. Specifically, the announcement only mentioned five brands that have utilized the feature so far – Verizon, Arden Cover, the Latinx In Power podcast, Gay Pride Apparel, and All I Do Is Cook.

Additionally, only iPhone users are currently able to view or interact with the shops, though the company plans to roll the feature out to other devices in the future.

Social Stores Are Becoming The Norm

The new feature underscores the increasingly blurry line between social media and online shopping. Several other platforms, including TikTok, Facebook, and Instagram have rolled out their own shopping tools to brands on their platform, though the most obvious comparison is Pinterest’s current shopping system where users can discover brands and shop their products on the platform before finalizing their purchase through retailer’s own sites.

For more, read Twitter’s full announcement here.

By partnering up with a range of online marketplaces, Instagram is making it easier for brands and creators to establish shops that are directly accessible in the social network, as well as introducing new features for affiliate links and other ways to monetize your social media content.

Facebook and Instagram Emphasize Monetization Tools for Creators

The wave of new and upcoming monetization features and tools come as part of a broader initiative to attract creators and influencers to Facebook and Instagram by offering a broad array of ways to monetize your online presence.

As the announcement says:

“We want Instagram and Facebook to serve as a home base for creators to tell their story, grow and make a living.

“…Today’s updates are a big part of a broader effort to support creators as they build their careers. …we are committed to building the right mix of tools to help them accomplish their goals.”

As such, the new tools and features are designed primarily with social creators in mind. Still, many brands may see opportunities to diversify and monetize their online presence by also taking advantage of the latest Instagram and Facebook features.

Opening a Shop on Instagram Gets Easier

One of the more interesting new features for many smaller businesses and entrepreneurs will be the announcement that the social network is making it easier to launch a shop directly within your Instagram profile. 

By working with an array of merchandising companies, you can now quickly and easily set up and link stores, rather than manually establishing a version of your shop through Instagram.

“For creators who already have their own product lines, they can now link their shop to their personal profile in addition to their business profile.

“Creators will also be able to set up a new shop and drive excitement with exclusive product launches from the Instagram app by linking their account with one of our four merchandise partners: Bravado/UMG, Fanjoy, Represent, and Spring.”

Currently, the tool is limited to creators and brands in the US and may take through the end of the year to fully roll out.

Native Affiliate Links

The announcement also mentions another tidbit which may be attractive to brands with their own partnerships or to entrepreneurs is the testing of a “native affiliate tool” which lets you earn revenue from promoting other brands of products.

The tool streamlines the process of sharing affiliate links entirely within the Instagram app and ensures sponsored content is appropriately tagged for audiences.

“When people come across an affiliate post from a creator featuring a tagged product, they will see “Eligible for commission” at the top of the post, so it’s clear that their purchases help support that creator.”

Though currently limited to a small group of well-known brands and creators, the feature is expected to be more widely available somewhat soon.

“Affiliate will test with a small group of US-based creators and businesses including Benefit, Kopari, MAC, Pat McGrath Labs and Sephora, and will expand to more partners in the future.”


Social networks like Instagram and Facebook have been gradually expanding to include storefronts and marketplaces for some time. With these new features, it is clear they hope to ensure this benefits everyone involved, including the brands and creators helping to promote those products through partnerships.