How to sell on Instagram

The number of registered Instagram users is constantly growing. According to statistics, as of 2024, the platform has more than 2 billion active visitors. Analysts expect that by 2025, the number of Instagram visitors will reach 2.44 billion.

It is important to understand that these are not only ordinary users, but also many entrepreneurs promoting and popularizing their product on the social network. So, business on Instagram has become commonplace for everyone. In online stores, experts in various niches can successfully sell their goods and services. This became possible not only thanks to entrepreneurs, but also due to the considerable efforts of the owner and developers of Instagram. Shopping on this social network has become more understandable for potential customers, and sales are conveniently systematized for sellers in online stores.

From an online photo album, Instagram has turned into a real trading platform for almost any business, so in this article we have collected as much useful information for business owners as possible. We will analyze in detail what you can sell on Instagram, how to start doing it and get sales faster after creating an online store or page of a narrow specialist, the advantages and disadvantages of this sales channel and mistakes that beginners often make on Instagram.

What to sell on Instagram?

Instagram is a social network that is very suitable for business development. You can try to sell everything, except for what is included in the list of prohibited products, such as:

• goods for adults (18+);
• alcohol and drugs;
• weapon;
• document forgery services;
• scam programs and more.

In more detail, we considered the issue of prohibited topics in articles about ad settings, we recommend that you familiarize yourself with it.

Keep in mind that prohibited topics can not only be promoted by targeted advertising, but also by bloggers. It is too risky and threatens to block pages.

What is popular on Instagram?

Internet stores with visually attractive products, that is, those that you want to look at and, as a result, get, enjoy the greatest demand on Instagram. These include:

1. First of all, online stores with clothes, accessories, jewelry, cosmetics and other goods related to the topic of fashion and style.
2. Internet stores with decor and various things for the comfort of the home, car and office, handmade, goods for children (optional) always attract attention on Instagram.
   
3. Many people are interested in sports and the corresponding goods in online stores that are needed for activities, because keeping the body in good shape has become one of the modern trends.
4. It is worth noting separately the topic of cooking on Instagram – it is one of the topics that are of interest to the maximum number of active users. There is also the sale of ready meals, recipes, and even kitchen equipment.
5. Oddly enough, even small appliances (for example, coffee machines, blenders, hair irons, etc.) can be visually attractive, but it is important to choose an experienced photographer for a photo and video session.
   
6. Digital goods, despite the fact that they do not exist physically and cannot be photographed, also have their audience. These are online courses on various topics, e-books, photo and video content, applications, programs, and more.

Services are also quite relevant among Instagram users. It is worth selling your expertise to hairdressers, tattoo artists, coaches, craftsmen who make repairs and maintain household appliances. Recently, the demand for psychologists has also increased.

In the sale of services, there is a feature that should be taken into account immediately: the promotion of an expert takes more time, so you should start early and not expect such quick results as with goods.

What subjects are not suitable for Instagram?

Unfortunately, there are categories of products that, even if it is possible to sell them, it will be too difficult to pay off their promotion. They include:

1. Oversized goods. They are also sold Instagram online stores, but the activity of users on such pages is very low, and Instagram is not the place where they usually go to buy appliances or furniture.
   
2. Technical equipment, such as agricultural machinery, medical equipment, various special purpose equipment – this is definitely not for sales on Instagram.
3. Not popular services or products for the majority of the audience. For example, online stores of goods for the elderly, which are little or not used at all social networks, or medical products. As an example, we can see that although the online store has a large number of subscribers, the activity of users is very low.

This list is actually very logical, because each social network has a certain audience that is interested in products that are popular right here and now. However, remember that with a creative approach to Instagram, you can sell everything and even more.

Advantages and disadvantages of Instagram sales

Of course, there are pros and cons, which often become clear not immediately, but in the process of promotion and sales through the Instagram social network. So that you have fewer questions and surprises, we have compiled a list of the most common nuances.

Having an understanding of what and how exactly to sell on Instagram, an entrepreneur receives the following advantages:

• a very wide audience, consisting mainly of paying young people aged 20-40, who are actively interested in various areas of life, not just work;
• the ability to visually show the product (goods or service) from the advantageous side with the help of high-quality photos, videos, reviews and the creation of successful use cases; this technique allows you to quickly convince potential customers that they need your product;
• quite affordable and effective point targeted advertising, which, with proper setup, brings a large number of customers every day; anyone can master the tools for running ads;

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• availability of bloggers from whom you can also buy advertising, get an increase in followers for your page and sales;
• comfortable sales for sellers and purchases for customers within the network.

There are some disadvantages that an entrepreneur may face when starting to sell on Instagram. Among them:

• all profiles on Instagram have the same interface, that is, you cannot stand out very noticeably among competitors; to get a more unique page and the attention of potential customers, make unusual photos, videos, reels, stories, the correct description of the page and highlights;
• Instagram is still a platform for communication and showing life, rather than turning into a sales target; for a phone, bicycle or refrigerator, the consumer goes to online or offline stores, and Instagram is for quick, often impulsive purchases of not too expensive goods;
• fast promotion of the page requires considerable financial investments immediately, so it is necessary to prepare for this in advance;
• if you do not have an understanding of how to create a page on Instagram for sale, then yours target audience will not trust such a page and, as a result, buy the product;
• there is no automation when placing an order, as in online stores; Filters for catalog searches can only be hashtags or highlights.

In conclusion, it is worth saying that most large companies consider Instagram as a platform for brand promotion, an additional small sales channel, but for startups and small companies, this platform is suitable even as the main sales channel.

How to start selling on Instagram: step-by-step instructions

Let’s go over in detail what needs to be done to get a wow effect from sales in the Instagram online store. Because everything works only when it is consistent and integrated. In short, the following steps are required:

Let’s break it down point by point. As you know, you always have to start from the ground up, build a house brick by brick on a properly laid foundation.

1. Conduct an analysis of direct and indirect competitors of the online store. To obtain basic information, you can use the search within the social network, entering thematic queries and keywords.

It is important to look at the chips of competitors, analyze the advantages and disadvantages of their pages, and then optimize and change the ideas for your unique product in the store. This is how it becomes possible to stand out among competitors, even in conditions of high competition in the niche. Don’t even think about blind copying: at a minimum, your page will simply be a clone of another and will not be of interest to TA, at a maximum, the page will get into a block, from which sometimes it will never even come out.

2. Analysis of the target audience. If you are already selling your product on any other web resource, then the table with analytics of potential buyers should be ready. If you are starting an online store on Instagram, describe in detail who your potential buyer is: age, marital status, job, income, dreams, pains, and more.

3. Creating a business account on Instagram. If you already have an existing personal page, that’s fine. Instagram doesn’t really want to actively promote new pages because it doesn’t trust them. After creating a business page, and it is easy to convert an ordinary page into a business page in the settings, we connect it to a business page on Facebook. The business page has statistics of all the content published on the page, so you can see the intermediate results of your efforts in real time.

To configure:

Settings and privacy → Account type and tools → Switch to a professional account → (choose a category depending on the specifics of the business) → Choose “Author” (for public figures, content authors, opinion leaders) or “Business” (for stores, companies), brands, organizations, and service providers) → Follow Instagram’s prompts to complete your professional account setup.

4. Developing a promotion strategy for an online store on Instagram and creating a content plan (CP) for a certain period are the next mandatory steps. According to the characteristics of the target audience, create a promotion strategy that will include closing all pain points, answering possible questions and working with objections to purchasing the product. The strategy will include a content plan for posts, stories, reels – for at least 2 weeks, and better – for a month.

You should have an end goal, why promote a page on Instagram at all, then there is a greater chance that there will be an incentive to regularly publish content.

The content plan should include topics, release dates, links to photos, videos and texts for posting on Instagram. You need informative, entertaining and sales content that will harmoniously complement each other every day in your online store. Keep in mind that people love to peek, so “behind-the-scenes content” will definitely increase your audience’s reach and engagement.

You can immediately add hashtags to KP that you will use for promotion, so it is easier and faster to make publications later.

5. Designing a business page on Instagram in accordance with all the rules makes it possible to optimize the profile for further promotion with the help of paid advertising. This includes:

• a bright, easy-to-remember avatar that is clear at first glance; for the expert – a personal photo, for the company – its name or logo. Taboo – many small elements;
• Instagram profile description: name including product name and location (optional) – “Permanent Makeup | Kyiv”, “Renovation of apartments | Lutsk” or “Copywriter | Texts Ukraine”, further in the description below the basis of the offer (what you are selling), USP (unique sales proposition, difference from competitors), terms of payment and delivery, business location, sales manager contacts;
• highlights (fixed or eternal stories) with the most important information about the company and products; for example, price, promotional products/services, working conditions, videos, how to get to the store or office (if it is offline), reviews and others at your discretion.

6.Regular publication of relevant content and engaging the audience to interact with the online store. Here it is important to adhere to the style and the chosen color scheme for the page so that everything looks as harmonious as possible. In everything else, a content plan prepared in advance helps. Interactions with page followers include dialogues in Direct and comments, mutual likes, incentives to leave real reviews for a discount on the next purchase or other bonus.

7. Launching targeted and advertising with Instagram bloggers requires investment, but it is necessary. If you don’t tell about yourself, no one will know. Word of mouth almost doesn’t work on Instagram, so you shouldn’t rely on rare comments in stories or posts from your friends and acquaintances.

Targeted advertising in the Facebook advertising cabinet can be launched in the format of posts with photos/videos and text, carousels (series of photos), reels and stories. It comes to bloggers most often native advertising in video format, less often – “head-on advertising”.

8. To monitor and analyze the results of advertising using the functionality of Instagram and third-party special services. This is necessary to understand whether the chosen strategy is working and how it should be changed to improve the results.

So, a competent strategy, a visually attractive Instagram page, constant interesting updates on the page, paid advertising and communication with the audience gives the desired effect in the form of a quick set of followers and an increase in the number of sales.

How to increase conversion on Instagram

If your page does not give the desired result even after implementing all the points that we discussed above, you should try to improve it conversions using the following options.

Analyze the commodity matrix

Having already gained some experience in selling goods through the Instagram online store or services, it’s time to conduct analytics and find out what sells better and what doesn’t. To understand which product is more in demand, and to focus on them in advertisements and on the page as a whole.

We make relevant products on Instagram the main ones during promotions and active sales, and the others are secondary, and we sell them together with the main product.

For example, an entrepreneur-beauty master who provides manicure services and is looking for TA through Instagram. The fact that clients come specifically for a manicure, with varnish or not, is logical. An additional service can be paraffin therapy or a full hand massage with useful oils. You need to advertise the result of a manicure that will sparkle beautifully under the lamp in a video or photo, but related products do not require such budget investments due to counter-productiveness.

Sell ​​more to a “warmer” audience

When users are already familiar with the product, are your subscribers, follow updates, then the chance to sell them the main products or make repeat sales is much greater. Therefore, it is worth remembering the importance of conducting contests, promotions and publishing quality content on the page, especially with regard to existing subscribers who already trust you.

Order advertising from bloggers responsibly

First, because it is usually expensive advertising. The cost for online stores of bloggers who have been monetizing their page for a long time reaches several hundred dollars. In order for such investments to pay off, the following factors should be taken into account:

• the relevance of your product for the blogger’s audience;
• statistics after similar advertising that the influencer launched earlier;
• the blogger’s advertising release schedule (yes, as a rule, they have it, and it is not so easy to get to the date the entrepreneur needs).

You need to be clear about how your online store, product or service will be advertised. For example, let’s take manicure again. In Instagram, a larger share of active users are women, so this product will find great feedback here. In order for advertising to be as native and unobtrusive as possible, the scheme can be as follows:

• The blogger is a middle-aged woman who constantly takes care of herself and often shows it to her audience. This time it’s time for her to do a fresh manicure, but her master (whom she probably mentioned before) went on vacation. She also broke a nail. Now he is looking for where to turn so as not to lose the master. Asks subscribers for advice.
• An influencer with an active audience will usually get a lot of advice from Direct. And then he goes to the story again and thanks for his activity. Tells about a wonderful craftsman who fell in love – this is the advertiser. Gives a link to her page and additionally a promo code for a discount on the first visit.
• The advertiser, in turn, pins posts with the most interesting manicure ideas, impressive work results, and the “meet the master” campaign (when you need to specify the exact promo code from the blogger during the recording) in his account on the top of the feed. It is important that the promotion has a validity period, for example, 2 weeks from the moment of publication of the post.

Such a sequence will maximally encourage the target audience to record “here and now”. But keep in mind that such promotions should be held rarely, so that new subscribers who came from the blogger do not feel cheated.

Give your customers value

All online stores and service providers think about how to increase sales and raise prices, but they forget about the importance of free “buns” for their audience. Subscribers highly appreciate the useful selections, tips, and life hacks posted on the page related to your product or service. In this way, you will show the value of your product and it will be easier to sell the main product.

Use free promotion methods

Reminder: Instagram hashtags still work and are free. Inside the page, they can be used as convenient navigation for customers, and placed under posts for promotion. TA looks for what it needs using the search box on Instagram in the same way as on Google. In order not to occupy symbols in the body of the post text, we recommend publishing them as the first comment.

Another free method of promoting on Instagram is adding geolocation to posts and stories. It also helps the promotion a bit.

Sell ​​through Stories

Today, Instagram users pay more attention to viewing stories. When they open the app, they first pay attention to short videos and photos in stories, and then only to watching the feed.

To improve viewing depth, you can creatively show your products in action, hold contests (for example, have subscribers search for letters in stories all day long, and whoever collects the word first receives a discount or other bonus for the order), publish polls, and more.

Make carousels in posts

Statistics show that posts on Instagram, which contain from 2 to 10 photos, attract more attention and increase the time spent viewing the content. And this, in turn, is considered by Instagram as content that should be promoted due to the high involvement of users.

For example, in the carousel you can present several products from the new collection or talk about the advantages of one product.

Try powerliking

The point of this method of promotion is that a popular page with a large number of followers likes your posts, stories or rails. Instagram algorithms make content through such likesvisible to the influencer’s readers. They pay attention to the publication, and this is how unobtrusive advertising turns out.

5 main mistakes that prevent you from selling on Insta

Selling on Instagram is a special art. There can be many mistakes here if you are a beginner, but let’s analyze the ones that are made most often. They can lead to a significant decrease in the number of conversions and income.

1. There is little information in the profile header. The user journey usually starts with a post or video you promote, and then the TA watches the cap. This issue was discussed in detail in the step-by-step instructions above, but the main thing here should be: the activity of the company or entrepreneur is described, the uniqueness (USO) is indicated, special conditions (availability of promotions, discounts in a certain period), methods of delivery and payment, location of the product (very important if you have a local business).
2. Publish only content that sells in the online store. This applies to posts, stories and rails. A balance is needed everywhere, because only “head sales” only annoy, and do not encourage purchases. Sales content should be no more than 30% of the entire material, and the rest of the space should be for informational and entertainment content.
3. Silence in the comments. Taking into account the fact that receiving comments today is generally a matter of luck, in no case should you ignore questions from users. Moreover, it is recommended to reply to any comment, because in this way Instagram sees that your post is interesting (there is a lively discussion) and starts showing it to more followers. Remember that commercial accounts that do not actively maintain a page, most likely will not inspire the trust of consumers.
4. Promote the online store page only in free ways. Paid promotion is a must-have for any business. Unfortunately, there is competition in any field, so the one who invests the budget in advertising will win. Every product and service needs promotion, because without it, even the most experienced expert in his field will be ignored.
5. Lack of price, clear or at least approximate prices. Yes, maybe some users will write in Direct or comment on the price of the offered product, but most of them are very nervous about this “trick to increase profile activity” and only make them want to go to another seller.

Many people neglect information about the importance of the price in the online store, and for good reason. Nowadays, people have too fast a pace of life, and few people want to write separately about the price to the owner of the page.

These mistakes can cause negative impressions of the product and the company as a whole, so we recommend that you treat them as carefully as possible.

To summarize

An online store on Instagram is an effective channel for selling goods and services. However, it is worth remembering that it should not be the only channel for getting customers, because the rules of Instagram are constantly changing, and you can accidentally get a shadow ban or get blocked from the page that you spent so much time and effort on.

Instagram is a good addition to the main web resource, a way to increase the credibility of the brand and its recognition, as well as an additional effective source of sales. The main thing is to correctly design the page, fill it with relevant, exciting content and advertise, and then Instagram will work 100%.

Pavlo Vlasiuk

CMO

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Olha Tyshchenko

Editor

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