Instagram reported to be backing away from turning the platform into a storefront

It seemed, in recent months, that Meta was hellbent on turning Instagram into an online store where users do their own product photography. A new report suggests that Meta has told staff that this drive is being scaled back.

But it won’t be entirely gone, of course. Commerce on Insta is very much on Meta’s mind. It’s just that short-form video — otherwise known as ‘competing with TikTok‘ — is more pressing. As such, expect a few changes to the app in the next few months.

A bit of that Instagram

The Information reports that Instagram staffers were told earlier this week that Instagram would “…drastically scale back its shopping features”. Advertising, Meta’s bread and butter, driven by short videos (TikTok’s bread and butter) would take precedence.

What this means for users is more video content advertising businesses. More Reels and more ads in Reels, and less direct shopping pressure. But shopping isn’t being totally tossed aside.

Instead, Instagram plans to roll out a feature called Tab Lite. This is a more basic version of the app’s shopping page, without quite so much of Meta’s signature targeted fury.

A public test of Tab Lite started today and will continue over the next few months. Once testing has been completed, everyone should have slightly less retail therapy pressure, and considerably more video ads. That’s… that’s good?

Source: The Information