Source: Instagram - #style
Cara Salpini
Through a special arrangement, what follows is an excerpt of an article from Retail Dive, an e-newsletter and website providing a 60-second bird’s eye view of the latest retail news and trends.
According to a survey of 2,000 Instagram users, the vast majority (85 percent) follow accounts that are style, fashion or lifestyle-focused, and 63 percent considering themselves to be a fashion-forward.
The study by Dana Rebecca Designs, the jewelry designer, found that 72 percent had made fashion, beauty or style-related purchases after seeing something on the photo-sharing social network. The most purchased categories were clothing, makeup, shoes and jewelry.
Although this study surveyed Instagram users exclusively — which no doubt impacted the results — half said Instagram was the social media platform that most influenced their shopping habits, followed by Facebook (23 percent), Pinterest (22 percent), Twitter (3 percent) and Snapchat (1 percent).
Snapchat held its ground much better in a July study by Yes Lifecycle Marketing, which found that 21 percent of Gen Zers were influenced by the platform while making purchase decisions, along with 11 percent of Millennials. Instagram, however, was also highly popular with Gen Z in that study (44 percent said they were influenced by it while making purchase decisions).
According to the Dana Rebecca Designs study, one in three had used Instagram inside a retail store to help with their purchase decisions. Only 18 percent had used the platform’s "Shop Now" feature, which allows users to shop products straight from their feed. The jewelry firm felt the low usage was because the feature, introduced last year, was “too new.”
Introducing the study, Dana Rebecca Designs wrote, “Long ago, it was movie stars, socialites, and royalty that dictated what was fashionable and trendy. Soon enough, printed catalogs and magazines showcased the latest looks across the covers on a seasonal schedule. Then the Internet happened and sharing ideas and inspiration with anyone in any part of the world at any time via social media became the new normal.”