Opening the Instagram app nowadays can be a bit confusing with all the changes that the app has gone through over the past years. It is no longer a platform merely for posting aesthetic pictures but also slowly evolving into an online shopping app and well, a mixture of every social media app, I guess.
Recently, Instagram has unveiled its latest feature known as ‘payments in chat’ that allows users to purchase orders and track them through Direct Messages (DMs).
If we take a look at this new feature, it is not entirely an odd concept. Before this, business owners have already utilized DMs to discuss the details about the product they sell or to answer customers’ inquiries. So, the payment in chat feature intends to make the transaction process more convenient for both parties. In other words, Instagram would want users to stay longer in the app (or probably never leave it).
This feature is currently available for users in the US.
Here’s how this feature works. Firstly, the buyer will browse and select whatever product they favored as usual. Then, once they make a decision, the business owner will create a request for payment. Next, the buyer will click on the ‘yes’ and ‘Pay’ options if they agree to proceed with the purchase.
Once that step is completed, the buyer will review all the necessary detail of the payment including the shipping process. When it is done, a screenshot will be given to show that the transaction is being processed through PayPal. In addition, payment in messages only works for qualified business accounts on Instagram. Overall, the whole process seems simple enough to navigate through.
By launching this new update, Instagram intends to make use of the e-commerce features that have recently gained popularity among users. We can only hope that this new update would function as well as it claims.
If you have this feature, go on and test it out!
