Social Commerce: How Retailers Evaluate and Strategically Use Instagram Shopping Features – A Qualitative Study

Instagram Shopping offers retailers advanced possibilities to promote their products within the social network. This use of social media for commercial practices is called s-commerce and transforms business-consumer-interactions, shopping- and selling behaviour. Instagram’s in-app shopping features enable a seamless customer journey from product tags in content to informational detail pages via direct referrals to the retailer's online shop. Since major updates in October 2020, Instagram presents shops more prominently, amplifying the relevance for users and businesses who target these users. While s-commerce has experienced a rising research trend in recent years, retailers’ perspective has remained largely unexplored. Though, practitioners’ views offer a relevant study subject because their marketing investments are the central drivers for the development of the social media landscape, affecting consumers and brands alike. With a practical focus on the retailer’s perspective, this study adds value to s-commerce scholarship. Furthermore, it fills the identified research gap, presenting the first scientific exploration of the professional use and evaluation of Instagram Shopping. To pursue the research question ‘How do German and Dutch Social Commerce Retailers evaluate and strategically use Instagram Shopping?’ a qualitative study was conducted. Informed by a sound literature review, Instagram Shopping could be positioned into the broad field of s-commerce applications. An integrated model of Technology Acceptance Model 2 (TAM2), Innovation Diffusion Theory (IDT), and Electronic Marketing Orientation (EMO) served as the theoretical foundation. These models offered variables to examine the strategic, operational, and evaluative levels of Instagram Shopping activities. For a qualitative and explorative research interest, semi-structured in-depth interviews were selected as the data collection method. Ten interviews with people in charge of Dutch and German Instagram Shops of various company types were conducted. Following a systematic approach for qualitative content analysis, the collected data was interpreted to answer the three sub-questions and the central research question. The results indicate that retailers use Instagram Shopping tactically to enhance the content with product information and enable direct referrals. Visual appeal and informational value were accentuated as important content characteristics, while user-generated content was subordinated to these values. The extent of strategic orientation varies between brands depending on the company size and general objective focuses. On the one hand, Instagram Shopping practitioners benefit from an added sales focus and facilitated marketing operations. On the other hand, the sales performance is perceived as marginal, the function entails usability issues, and s-commerce on Instagram was experienced as time-consuming. Overall, Instagram Shopping only played a minor role compared to other measures or channels for marketing and commerce. Finally, the findings allowed to derive managerial implications for effectively exploiting Instagram Shopping through strategic orientation, considerate implementation, customer research, and efficient work division.