Instagram Reportedly Working On New Standalone App For Shopping

Instagram has already released IGTV as a standalone app for watching vertical videos. Now, a new report claims that the Facebook-owned company is building a new standalone app that’s intended for shopping.

The new standalone shopping app from Instagram is said to be currently in development and it might be called IG Shopping if it’s ever released to the public, according to The Verge. People familiar with the matter claim that IG Shopping will allow users to browse collections of goods from businesses that they are following. Users will also be able to directly purchase products within the IG Shopping app.

Unfortunately, that’s all the details available on what IG Shopping will be and there’s currently no information on the possible timeframe for when it will be launched. The Verge also notes that the Instagram shopping app could even be canceled. What’s known for certain, however, is that the IG Shopping app is still being developed.

Instagram reportedly believes that it’s in a good position to expand to providing e-commerce services. That’s actually very true considering that there are already more than 25 million businesses operating on Instagram, while 2 million of those are advertisers. There are also millions of users on Instagram that are already following businesses.

Instagram is also not a complete stranger to allowing direct payments in its app. In May, Instagram launched a new payments platform right inside its own app and it allows users to add a debit or credit card to make in-app purchases. The payments platform has been in testing for months now, as pointed out by 9To5Mac. Another thing to point out here is that Instagram already allows businesses to sell products in the app since last year and it is now testing shopping features for Instagram Stories.

A standalone shopping app from Instagram shouldn’t be a huge surprise to anyone since Facebook is already pushing hard on expanding its e-commerce reach. Last year, Facebook launched its Marketplace within its app and desktop site. Instagram is already one of the most popular apps in the world, so it makes a lot of sense that Facebook would want to explore possibilities in generating a new stream of revenue.

Facebook could add more tools for merchants who want to build their businesses on Instagram, which means that Facebook could directly challenge other e-commerce services like Shopify. Most businesses already have Instagram accounts anyway and it seems very likely that they would pay for these new tools.