Instagram is shutting down Live Shopping on March 16th. The meta isn’t the only one, it’s all social buying that the public doesn’t seem to like.
Meta hasn’t finished cleaning up its trading functions yet. Instagram just warned its users that Live Shopping will no longer be available from March 16th. After this date, it will no longer be possible to tag products during live streams, you will have to wait until the end or follow the classic links, a much less elegant solution, in order to buy one or another product. The social network justifies this initiative by saying that it “helps focus”on its core functions.
Instagram is shutting down Live Shopping on March 16th.
The move came shortly after Instagram removed the shopping tab from the home screen, and a few months after Facebook also phased out Live Shopping in favor of Reels. Shopping is still part of the experience these social apps offer in posts, videos, and stories, but Meta is clearly changing its approach, going back to the basics, so to speak. Live Shopping was introduced to Instagram in 2020 when many people had to stay at home during the pandemic.
This closure of Live Shopping is not very surprising. Meta is looking to keep its costs down to cope with the current difficulties and turn towards the Metaverse, which is having a big impact on how it operates. In fact, the giant is especially quick to abandon the least efficient projects. As Gizmodo explains, this could well include Live Shopping on Instagram. In 2022, social shopping accounted for “only”5% of US e-commerce, according to a study by Insider Intelligence. If this figure is correct, then Meta won’t be making a lot of money from its shopping-focused live streams.
The meta isn’t the only one, it’s all social buying that the public doesn’t seem to like.
Meta isn’t the only one struggling with shopping features. TikTok was supposed to launch Live Shopping in North America late last year but ended up switching to third-party technology. The Financial Times said last summer that TikTok was revising its plans downward due to weak enthusiasm from the United Kingdom and a massive exodus of its employees. In other words, the target audience for live social shopping may not be as big as the giants had hoped.