May 2, 2019
Instagram gets commercial
Users will soon be able to make purchases without leaving the app.

Carl Court/Getty Images
Instagram, the photo-sharing platform owned by Facebook, is already full of “influencers” like the Kardashians, or model Gigi Hadid, who have huge followings and post about products they use, or get paid to use. It announced yesterday that it’s making it possible for users to buy those same products from influencers right in the app, without linking out to separate websites. Instagram has been testing a new in-app checkout system for its advertisers for a couple of months. But what makes us Insta-buy? And what could more retail mean for the future of the social network?
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