Author: Manish Barthwal

Following his passion for writing, Manish has been providing value to his readers through his write-ups. He predominantly writes for the e-commerce industry. Apart from writing, Manish's love for cricket is unmatchable. He is an ardent cricket fan.

Why Digital Gift Cards are Important to your eCommerce Business?

People get a headache when it comes to choosing a gift. Even after spending hours choosing one, they aren’t sure whether the recipient would like it or not. This is when Digital Gift Cards provide a helping hand to online shoppers.

Did you know the total amount spent on Gift cards every year is more than $100 Billion?

What is a Digital Gift Card?

A virtual card that can be used for making purchases in your store. Digital Gift Cards, also referred to as e-gift cards or electronic gift cards contain a gift code assigned by the brand and are sent via email.

These cards are very effective when you have an indecisive buyer in your store. Many brands have an option of digital gift cards of various amounts. Sellers decide on a range and terms and conditions for the validity and usability of the card.

How do E-Gift Cards Work?

When sent over the recipient’s email address, they can redeem the gift card on the Brand’s website by applying the gift code on the checkout page or adding the amount to their store wallet. Once applied, the product amount falling under the gift card amount is discounted. E-gift cards can be sent to anyone anywhere all over the world.

How to send a Digital Gift Card?

There are a few simple steps that you have to follow to send a digital gift card:

  1. Select the eGift card option from the menu or category section
  2. Choose your favourite Design or upload a picture to personalize it
  3. Select an amount that you wish to gift
  4. Mention the Recipient’s Name
  5. Add the Recipient’s Email Address where you want to send it
  6. Add a customized text message for your loved ones
  7. Review Order in the cart
  8. The Recipient and sender Get an Email

This is a generalized format that eCommerce companies use when they offer digital gift card features in their store.

Why do millennials prefer sending Gift Cards?

The versatility of gift cards is the main reason for their popularity. In other words, gift card recipients can buy whatever they want from their favourite company with their gift card.

You are relieved of the stress of finding the proper gifts for your family and friends as a car buyer, especially if you have no idea what the recipient would enjoy. most people are pleased when they receive gift cards for the following reasons:

  1. It allows them to purchase their preferred gift for little or no additional expense.
  2. Buyers of gift cards don’t have to worry about giving receivers something they already have.
  3. The gift cards can be used by the recipients whenever they like. Gift cards can be used to shop online or in a local store.
  4. When making a purchase with gift cards during sales, the recipient can buy more products or more expensive items.

Benefits of Digital Gift Cards for Businesses

Consumers love purchasing gift cards as they are cost-effective and most importantly, time-saving. Not only for the people but digital gift cards provide ample benefits to a brand as well.

1. Increase your Sales and Revenue

The foremost benefit of eCommerce gift cards is that they boost your sales. Creditcards.com reports that Gift Cards are the most requested present during the holiday season.

When the pressure is high to search for a perfect gift for the close ones, people switch to the Gift card option. We can say that Gift cards are a boon to last-minute shoppers.

Gift cards also help you drive more revenue. The gift card holder will likely spend more than the gift card amount while utilising it. E-Gift Cards are often used as a discount to buy products that have a slightly larger value so that they do not have to pay a heavy amount to purchase the product.

According to the stats by Gift Card Granny, 72% of the customers spend more than the gift card amount while purchasing a product.

2. Boost Brand Awareness

Another benefit of digital gift cards is increased Brand Awareness. It is very much possible that the person receiving the gift card may have never heard of your brand.

A gift card allows them to try out your products and get a better insight into your brand. If the recipient likes your offerings, there are certain chances that he or she will buy a similar gift card for their loved ones, hence boosting your brand awareness.

Your brand logo in the gift card gets your brand noticed. Moreover, unlike physical gift cards, digital gift cards can be sent from anywhere to any part of the world, which gives your business a global reach.

3. Digital Gift Cards are Convenient and Secure

Unlike conventional paper or physical gift cards that can be lost or stolen, digital gift cards are far more secure and convenient. There aren’t any possibilities of such occurrences. You can send or receive a digital gift card without any hassle and the amount is always safe. It avoids pointless debates about what kind of gift people would want and whether or not they already have it. Before or during the holidays, customers can purchase and mail gift cards directly to their recipients’ home addresses.

The recipient of a gift card can shop for their favourite item in a local store or on the eCommerce website. The special occasions need special celebrations. Purchasing gifts for family and friends for special occasions such as Christmas is unavoidable. As a result, it’s preferable to buy a gift card depending on the recipient’s preferences.

It won’t take much time or effort, and you’ll be able to determine the worth of your gift by allocating a certain amount to each gift card

4. Gain Customer Loyalty

Adding to the benefits of gift cards is they help you earn customer loyalty. To make customers stick to your brand in the long run, earning their loyalty is important. And you can earn that loyalty only when you can keep them happy and satisfied.

For the customers who did not find a pleasing experience with your products or want to process a return or a refund, a gift card, in such a situation, can ease things up and help you retain customers, improving customer retention.

Best time to offer digital gift cards?

Gifts make a connection between the sender and the receiver. It is a token of love. You don’t need an occasion to make your friends and family feel overwhelmed. Here comes the digital gift card in the picture.

If it is difficult to find the right gift for them, give them a gift card. You can consider gifting on their birthday, anniversary, mother’s day, father’s day, or any other occasion. The holiday season is another best occasion for showering love!

Gift Card Manager by KnowBand

KnowBand, one of the leading e-commerce service providers, offers the Gift Card Manager module to the merchants having their store set up on the PrestaShop, OpenCart, Magento or Magento 2 platform.

The module adds a gift card section on your website and offers pre-existing customizable gift card templates for multiple occasions like Halloween, Christmas, New Year, Halloween, Mother’s Day, Birthday, Anniversary,  etc. It also lets you add new gift card templates for any desired occasion so that you do not miss out on any important event.

With the help of our Gift Card module, you can create gift cards of different values so that a customer can purchase a gift card as per his/her budget. The gift card can be set for multiple currencies hence allowing customers to send a gift card to their loved ones living outside and enabling the recipient to shop in their local currency.

Try out the Gift Card Manager module today!

PrestaShop Gift Card Manager addon

OpenCart Gift Card Manager extension

Gift Card Manager extension for Magento 2

Final Word

By looking at the growth of digital gift cards in the eCommerce market, the availability of the gift card option for online shoppers can scale up your sales.

I hope the above-mentioned benefits of gift cards have provided you with good enough reasons to add the Gift Card section on your website. Finding trouble setting up the gift card section? Try out our Gift Card Manager. If you need any assistance with the module, you can reach out to us at support@knowband.com

Magento One Click Checkout

In many e-commerce websites, it often happens that if a user has some pending items in their cart, they cannot purchase some other product until they remove the previously added items. Though it is not something which irks a customer as they are the only ones who added the products in their cart. However, sometimes, it can discourage the instant purchase intent of the customer. To make things easy, KnowBand presents the One Click Checkout extension. If you have set up an e-commerce store on the Magento platform, Magento One Click Checkout can be beneficial for you.

Magento One Click Checkout triggers impulse purchases by allowing customers to purchase a product directly, without adding it to the cart. It does not interfere with the existing cart.

Note: Do not get confused between a One Page Checkout and a One Click Checkout. A one-page checkout simplifies the checkout process by placing all the checkout fields on a single page whereas the purpose of a one click checkout is to make customers buy a product without making any changes to the current cart details.

Features of Magento One Click Checkout

1. Magento One Click Checkout displays a “Buy Now” button at every product page. The product page displays two options: Add to Cart and Buy Now. A customer can click on Buy Now to purchase that particular product even if he/has some other pending items in the cart.

2. You can customize the “Buy Now” button as per your website design and adjust it for different themes and occasions.

3. Magento quick checkout extension offers an amazing analytics view to check the statistics. You can view how many users visited the product page, how many clicked on the Buy Now button, and out of those, how many eventually converted, in the form of a pie-chart.

4. Magento single click checkout is fully responsive.

5. Magento fast checkout extension is compatible with all Magento themes.

6. It is also compatible with the Magento One Page Checkout module.

7. You can enable/disable the module anytime.

8. Magento Instant checkout extension has the option to include jQuery.

Why you should choose Magento one click checkout for your e-commerce store?

1. To encourage easy and instant purchase

2. To improve user experience

3. To minimize the possibilities of cart abandonment

4. To increase conversions and drive more sales

5. To save the important time of a customer which otherwise would have been wasted in removing the existing cart items.

Final word

Make your store the go-to option for active online shoppers with the easily customizable Magento One Click Checkout. If you have any queries regarding this Magento extension, reach out to us at support@knowband.com or leave a comment below.

Benefits of Customer Loyalty Programs for your Online Business

What are Loyalty Programs? Why have they become an important element for online businesses? What are the benefits of customer loyalty programs? How do loyalty programs work?

If you have these questions running through your mind, you have landed at the right place to get an answer to all these questions. Let’s begin.

When the eCommerce industry was less crowded and people had limited options to shop online, Brands did not use to be much concerned about losing customers. Since the choices were few, people used to shop from the same brand from which they shopped earlier.

But today, when the eCommerce sector has hugely expanded, people have countless options to shop from. This led to brands losing out customers to their competitors, and hence loyalty programs came into existence.

What is a Loyalty Program?

A Loyalty Program is a marketing strategy used by Brands where they reward incentives or loyalty points to the shoppers every time they purchase from their website/store. The points are awarded so that the customer continues to shop from the same brand in his/her future purchases.

Recommended Blog: How important is an eCommerce loyalty program for an eCommerce store?

How do Customer Loyalty Programs work?

To begin with, the customer makes a purchase and receives some points in his/her wallet. It is a gesture by a Brand to thank customers for choosing their brand to shop for.

Upon receiving loyalty points, the customers can redeem those points as a discount on their next purchase.

What’s exciting about customer loyalty programs is that it is a continuous cycle where customers get rewarded for every purchase.

So customers keep buying, receive rewards, and then use them during checkout, and this is how the loyalty program cycle works.

The types of loyalty programs vary from business to business but they all have their focus centred around one purpose- Making customers loyal to the brand or in short, building customer loyalty.

Recommended Blog: How PrestaShop Loyalty Point Program can take your Marketing to Next Level

Benefits of Customer Loyalty Programs

A loyalty program offers numerous benefits. In this article, I have put forward the top 6 benefits of loyalty programs for your online business.

1. Improve Customer Retention

The first and foremost benefit of a loyalty program is it helps you improve customer retention. I mean, every loyalty program has one primary motive, i.e. to retain customers, and they do make one of the best and most effective customer retention strategies.

Did you know around 60% of the retailers find customer retention their biggest obstacle? Loyalty Programs eliminate that hurdle to a certain extent.

2. Increase in Sales

Increased sales are the next advantage of loyalty programmes. So, loyalty programs are highly effective in boosting your eCommerce revenue. Offering loyalty points to a customer for buying products ensures repeat purchases and helps you win customer loyalty over time.

Once you win their loyalty, they will be likely to put more trust in your brand and prefer it over your competitors. And once they become your loyal customers, your sales graph would often remain high.

What if I tell you that existing customers contribute to 65% of a company’s business? I guess this is enough to make you understand the importance of customer loyalty programs.

Recommended Blog: 8 Ways to Build Customer Trust and Loyalty

3. Loyalty Programs are Cost-Effective

Retaining existing customers is comparatively less expensive than acquiring new ones. The credibility that you have built with your existing customers would have taken you a lot of effort, time and money. To turn a new customer into a loyal customer would require the same commitment.

But your existing customers have been through your journey, hence, the expense to persuade them for regular purchases is less than what would be required to influence new customers.

Research says acquiring new customers costs 5 times more than retaining the existing ones.

4. Take Customer Relationships to the Next Level

To grow as a brand requires a healthy relationship with customers, and Loyalty programs help you build a strong bond with your customers.

76% of consumers think that Loyalty programs are a part of their relationship with brands. By getting rewards or loyalty points for making a purchase, customers feel more attracted and emotionally attached to your brand and prefer it as their go-to option for online shopping.

Value your customers, and treat them special. Make them feel that they are important and you want them to return to your store again. Build a personal connection through your loyalty programs.

5. Grow Brand Awareness

Adding to the benefits of customer loyalty programs is they boost your Brand Awareness.

If a customer receives loyalty points on a purchase, he or she will likely suggest your brand to his/her friends, family, colleagues or relatives. Those customers are what we call Brand Advocates who do word of mouth for your brand and bring you, new customers. So we can say that customer loyalty programs are effective in customer acquisition as well.

This gets your brand noticed. More and more people visit your store and look to buy from your brand.

Recommended Blog:  7 Ways to Increase Average Order Value

6. Loyalty Programs make Customers happy

Customer happiness and fulfilment are one things that customer loyalty programmes promise. Any consumer would adore getting anything in return for their buy.

And customers would also appreciate you for this and will have more liking towards your brand. It reflects that you not only see them as one-time customers but want to maintain a healthy relationship with them in the future as well.

Loyalty Points module by KnowBand

If you are also looking to set up a loyalty program for your eCommerce business, our Loyalty Points module will help you do so efficiently. It not only helps you with customer retention but also provides you with an opportunity to acquire new customers. How?

Well, the Loyalty Points module lets you reward a joining bonus to new users when they sign-up on your website and when a user makes a purchase. Customers can use loyalty points in the form of a discount voucher.

This is a feature-packed module that lets you define several conditions for a customer to earn loyalty points, for example, when a user has shopped for a certain amount or a certain quantity, etc. Simply expressed, a user will only be qualified to collect loyalty points if they meet the criteria established by the store.

To make things more interesting, you can surprise your customers by crediting loyalty points in their store wallets anytime. Knowband offers the Loyalty Points module for PrestaShop, OpenCart and Magento 2. Check out the module to know its complete features and benefits-

Over to You

More than 80% of online shoppers said that loyalty programs encourage them to continue purchasing from certain brands. Therefore, you simply cannot overlook the benefits of loyalty programs.

Your competitors, somewhere, are taking away your potential customers from a loyalty program scheme. It’s high time that you have a similar program too. Do not overthink what your competitors are doing. Focus on what you can do best to motivate your customers to remain loyal.

Stats collected from Invesp

I Hope, this information that I shared with you made you understand the importance of customer loyalty programs. If you would like to add something to this article, feel free to leave a comment below. For any assistance or queries regarding the module, you can contact us at support@knowband.com

A Guide to Instagram Hashtags in 2021

“Instagram Hashtags are a key to boosting your brand presence on the world’s second-largest social media platform after Facebook (Excluding YouTube and WhatsApp). In this article, we will cover the role of Instagram Hashtags; why they are important, and how to use hashtags in your Instagram posts to achieve productive results.

Hashtags play a major role in your social media marketing strategy. Some of the popular social media platforms where hashtags are of supreme value are Instagram and Twitter. Though you will see people or brands using hashtags on other social platforms as well like Facebook and LinkedIn, they are not as effective as they are on the former two platforms.

What are Hashtags?

A hashtag, denoted by the number or symbol # (hash) is a tag that is used to highlight or add a label to a specific topic, content, or theme. It basically forms a category for all the content falling under a particular hashtag.

For example, in a Brazil vs Argentina Football match, you would find people using hashtags like  #BRAvARG or #ARGvBRA. These hashtags will become a thread for people to have a discussion on that match.

With the latest update of Instagram, you get a maximum limit of 30 hashtags for each post. Along with that, a user can also tag 20 people in their posts.

Why Instagram Hashtags are Important in 2021?

What role do Instagram hashtags play in your marketing? How can they be an invaluable asset for your business promotion on the Instagram platform? Let’s try to find out.

1. Instagram Hashtags help to Build Brand Awareness

The most effective use of Instagram hashtags is to build brand awareness. The primary reason for setting up an Instagram business account is to make the users of that platform aware of your Brand. And to make that happen, you need to make use of hashtags and create your own brand hashtags as well. This is important because if your hashtag contains your brand name, it will appear in the search results when users are searching for something related to your brand.

2. To Increase Product Visibility

Instagram hashtags help a lot in marketing. They provide you with a wide organic reach and can help you promote your brand products in front of a huge Instagram audience, thus increasing your product visibility.

While hashtags might seem interesting, they would not be of any use if they are not relevant. Searches on Instagram are based on Hashtags only. When posting about a product, use Hashtags that you think would display your post in the search results. Think from a user’s point of view, what would they be searching that could make your post appear on the search results.

3. Instagram Hashtags Generate High User Engagement

A study suggests that Instagram posts that contain hashtags achieve 13% higher engagement than posts without hashtags. And the reason is obvious. The more people who see your post, the more interaction you will get. And with higher user engagement, you will get more followers for your Brand.

4. Instagram Hashtags can be helpful for your Marketing Campaigns

Marketing campaigns that focus on user-generated content are completely based on hashtags.

Many popular brands have utilized the power of hashtags for branding. Coca Cola launched a “Share a Coke” campaign in 2011 where they asked people to share their coke moments by using the hashtag #ShareaCoke. The campaign was a huge hit.

You can create similar campaigns for your brand and go viral overnight on the Instagram platform. No paid advertising can beat this kind of promotion.

But it isn’t as easy as it said, especially for a new brand. Prepare a roadmap on how can you make your campaign successful. Most importantly, provide some freebies or gift vouchers in return. If people are not going to get benefited, it would hardly arise their interest.

5. To be Ahead of your Competitors

Know who your competitors are, track what they are doing, what they advertise, what kind of hashtags do they use. This will give you an insight into your competitors and you can analyze their strong points and weak points to make your brand look better than them. Learn what works best for you and what doesn’t. Moreover, hashtags keep changing, so keep a check on the latest trending Instagram hashtags.

Few things that you don’t know about the hashtags

At some point, you may observe that your hashtags aren’t working. Here are some reasons why this happens:

  1. You are using hashtags that are irrelevant to your posts
  2. You’re using banned hashtags
  3. Maybe you are using the same hashtags every time
  4. You’re choosing hashtags that are too broad
  5. You’re using hashtags that are too competitive

Avoid making these mistakes when planning on your hashtags before making any of your next Instagram posts live.

Final Word

If you want to get noticed by the Instagram community, start using hashtags, and use them in the right way so that your content is presented in front of the right audience.

Do you know, you can fetch Instagram content on your e-commerce website as well? Yes, you heard it right. If you own an eCommerce store on the OpenCart, Magento, or Magento 2 platform, you can get this feature by using Instagram Shop Gallery.

Instagram Shop Gallery extension will add an attractive Instagram Gallery section to your website. With the help of this extension, you can display your own Instagram account images and images based on hashtags, and then you can tag or mention your store products on the fetched images, similar to Instagram Shoppable Posts. Do give this a try.

Instagram Shop Gallery extension for OpenCart

Magento Instagram Shop Gallery

Instagram Shop Gallery for Magento 2

If you have any more points to add to this article, do let me know by dropping a comment below. I would like to know your take as well on the Instagram hashtags.

For any query or assistance, reach out to us at support@knowband.com

20 Best Rental Business Ideas You Can Start With

The rental business has gained huge popularity. The growth in the rental sector in the past few years has opened a vast opportunity for small businesses to start offering rental services. Today, people prefer to book any service or product on rent rather than purchase it, the reason being renting is affordable.

The following factor opens up new doors of the rental business opportunities for the new-comers.

Thus, if you are also looking to start your rental business, here are the 20 rental business ideas to start and scale up your business in the rental niche.

1. Car Rental Business

The demand for car rental is very high. Travel freaks often rent cars for trips or vacations. This is mostly seen among college groups who like exploring places and doing adventures. So, providing a car rental facility can be a profitable and ideal way to kick-start your rental business.

You can also hand over your car to a travel agency and earn a decent income. Another idea would be to register your car on on-demand taxi booking apps like Ola and Uber.

2. House Rental

If you have multiple properties under your name, you can start a property rental business and offer some of your properties on rent and gain a decent income. You can turn your houses into PGs and welcome college students.

3. Travelling Kit Rental

People usually require a traveling kit in which they keep essential traveling items like a hiking bag, hiking waterproof rain jacket, trekking head torch, camera kit, etc. You can provide such items on a rental basis and fulfill the requirements of the travelers.

4. Room Rental Business

 Just like Airbnb and OYO, you can provide rooms to people for a limited time. People often look to book rooms for a short period when they are outside the city for work purposes. Reach out to your nearby hotels and start a partnership with them.  This is not only an ancient rental business segment but also an evergreen kind of business.

5. Campsite Rental

Adventure freaks are always in search of camping sites, so investing in the land (great if you already have) and converting it into a campground for rent can be a good rental business idea.

Furthermore, if you have properties near well-signed locations, you are already a plus. Start your rental business today with minimum investments.

6. Camp Equipment Rental

For camping enthusiasts, equipment like camping tents, airbeds, backpacks, hiking poles, camping cookware, etc can be provided on rent.

7. Fishing Rental

Fishing requires a lot of equipment. Equipment like fishing rods, fishing lines, and terminal tackle can always be provided for rent.

8. Boat Rental

Another rental business idea would be to start a boat rental business. You could start a boat rental service on the areas that are surrounded by rivers and lakes.

9. Land Rental

Today, renting out land is one of the most popular sources of income. You can lease out the land or a part of it for various purposes like agriculture, wedding, etc.

10. Furniture Rental

You can start a rental business that offers furniture for rent. Most corporate offices look to purchase furniture on rent, hence this can be an ideal solution.

11. Office Space Rental

If you have a large space, such that it can be used to set up an office, providing it on rent can make you earn a handsome amount of bucks.

12. Conference Room Rental

If there is some extra space available in your building, you can provide that space to businesses to use it as a conference room.

13. Office Equipment Rental

A corporate office requires a lot of set-ups and a set-up requires equipment like tables, chairs, printers, etc. You could rent out such office equipment.

14. Camera Rental

There is always a high demand for cameras in tourist places. If you have a wide collection of cameras, you can offer them on rent and earn a decent income. This business requires minimum assets and knowledge if you already have well-maintained and high-quality cameras.

15. Tent Rental

Tent house rent providers hardly sit idle for any day throughout the year. The bookings for events like weddings, and birthdays, are made in advance. So offering a tent rental service can make you earn a handsome income without even putting in much effort.

16. Costume and Clothing Rental

Costumes on occasions like Halloween and Christmas are worn once a year. In such cases, you can provide the costumes on rent for specific occasions.

17. Cleaning Supply Rental

People prefer to get cleaning equipment like steamers, carpet cleaners, and scrubbers on rent as these types of equipment are only required once in a while.

18. Construction Equipment Rental

Adding to our list of rental business ideas would be to offer construction equipment on rent. Since construction equipment is expensive, you could provide them on rent to the professionals and make it affordable for businesses that do not require them too often.

Construction equipment can include a scissor lift, excavator, concrete mixer, etc.

19. Wedding Dress Rental

The wedding dress rental business is seen quite often nowadays. Wedding dresses are one-time wear or max you can wear it on your first anniversary. Otherwise, those expensive outfits remain in the closet forever, just as a memory.

Start a rental business that focuses on providing wedding dresses for rent. This creates a win-win situation for both the customer and the business. Customers would not have to pay the actual amount of the dress and businesses can cover more money through rent than its original price.

20. Bicycle Rental

To support an eco-friendly environment, starting a bicycle rental business could turn out to be an amazing idea. The government in metro cities has also initiated to put bicycles at metro stations so that people avoid traveling by Car or Bike.

Not only for metro stations, but you can also start renting bicycles on areas where the crowd is heavily attracted so that more and more people make use of it.

If you are specific about Hotel/room rentals or Vehicle Rental and want to start a rental business online, you should check out our Booking and Rental system module.

Booking and Rental System Module by Knowband

The Online Booking and Rental system module helps you set up your rental business conveniently on your website.  If you have an existing website on Prestashop, Opencart, or Magento 2 you can explore Knowband’s Booking and Rental Extension.  

With the help of Booking and Rental Addon for Prestasop, you can add your rental products without any hassle and customize your booking price as per your desire. Some of the key features of the online booking system module offered by us are-

1. The Booking and Rental module lets you add multiple booking and rental services, like an appointment, hotel booking, car rental, etc. You can add your desired service and make the desired changes.

2. Option to show available date & time slots, available quantity, and the up-front booking price.

3. Flexibility to set multiple price rules for different days and timing.

PrestaShop Booking and Rental Mobile App

Explore Knowband’s Prestashop Booking and Rental Mobile App for seamless management of bookings and rentals directly from your mobile device.

SHOP NOW

This module is available for PrestaShop and OpenCart platform-

PrestaShop Booking and Rental System

OpenCart Booking and Rental System

You can also check out PrestaShop Booking and Rental Mobile App which is a combination of PrestaShop Booking and Rental System and PrestaShop Mobile App Builder.

For any assistance, you can reach out to us at support@knowband.com

A complete guide to Instagram Shopping

According to the stats collected by Hootsuite, 1 billion people use Instagram every month, and around 130 million Instagram users tap on a shopping post. Brands use Instagram shopping posts to showcase their products and drive more sales. An Instagram Shop allows Instagram users to look for the desired product by visiting the brand page. The products are tagged on the images and users are redirected to the website to complete the checkout. In fact, with Instagram’s latest checkout feature, people can now purchase products directly from Instagram without having to close the app or getting redirected to the original store.

With Instagram shopping posts, you can make your followers aware of your products and guide them towards an easy purchase. Ensure you are using the Instagram shopping costs effectively, which means using high-quality product images, attractive captions, proper hashtags, and a perfectly timed sales pitch.

In this article, I will provide you a guide to set up your Instagram shop, brief you on how to add product tags to your Instagram posts and how you can drive more sales with Instagram shopping posts.

What are Instagram Shopping posts?

An Instagram shopping post contains product tags that make it easier for Instagram users to browse those products and make a purchase. They make the shopping path easy for the followers.

Many e-commerce retailers have even integrated their Instagram business account on their website and created a similar kind of Instagram Shop. KnowBand offers an Instagram Shop Gallery extension that fetches your Instagram account images or Instagram hashtags on your eCommerce store and helps you link your store products to the fetched Instagram content. The extension is currently available for OpenCart, Magento and Magento 2. Check them out.

OpenCart Instagram Shop Gallery extension

Magento Instagram Shop Gallery extension

Magento 2 Instagram Shop Gallery extension

How to set up an Instagram shop?

You need to go through a few steps before you can share a shoppable post.

1. Instagram has approved 46 countries to avail the features of Instagram shopping. Hence, your location should be in those 46.

2. You must have a business profile on Instagram that sells physical products.

3. Your Instagram business profile must be associated with a Facebook catalog for your products.

To create a catalog for your products, you need to add a Shop section to your Facebook page. Then go to your business manager account, create a new or add an existing catalog that you would like to use for Instagram shopping.

If you are a PrestaShop or Magento store owner, you can take the help of the PrestaShop FB store addon and Magento FB store extension respectively to open a Facebook shop.

4. Once you have followed all the steps, Instagram will review your account. This can take a couple of days.

5. After your account gets approved, you can start adding product tags to your Instagram posts.

How to add product tags to your Instagram posts?

The process to add product tags to your Instagram posts is pretty simple. You just need to select the picture, write your caption, use suitable hashtags. Just when you are about to finish, you will see the option of “Tag Products”.

Now, search for the product name that you want to tag in your post and add it. You can add up to 5 tags on your post.

Once it is done, you are ready to share your first Instagram shopping post.

How to drive sales with Instagram shopping posts?

1. Use High-quality pictures

The quality of your images decides the interest of the user in the products. No matter how amazing your product is, a bad quality image will not encourage a user to go for the purchase. Get your products photoshoot from a professional photographer for an amazing response from the followers.

2. Use Proper Hashtags

Optimize your Instagram shopping posts by using proper hashtags, which clearly define your products so that when people start searching for that term, your product appears on the search results. This gives a wide organic reach to your Instagram shopping posts. In addition to this, when a user follows a hashtag, your product visibility increases. More visibility creates more chances for sales.

3. Make sure the tags are attached to the right products

Attaching irrelevant tags to the products can mislead your followers and leave a bad impression. It can break the credibility.

4. Use Instagram stories to increase user engagement

Instagram stories are the latest trend. Brands use stories to attract the attention of followers. An Instagram story ensures that your followers do not miss any important announcement if in case they have skipped the post.

Conclusion

Instagram is currently one of the most engaging social media networks for users. Brands should not ignore its popularity. Instagram shopping posts look promising to reach out to potential customers. Such features provide businesses an excellent opportunity to attract Instagram users and convert them into potential buyers.

Create an Instagram Shop section on your e-commerce store as well. This works well to fetch user-generated content by using Hashtags and increases your brand awareness if you are running a marketing campaign.

Magento 2 Instagram Shop Gallery extension

If you own an e-commerce store on the Magento 2 platform and want to give your store a look of an Instagram shop, the Magento 2 Instagram Shop Gallery extension will surely match your requirements.

Magento 2 Instagram Shop Gallery extension lets you fetch content from Instagram hashtags and convert them into shoppable posts. The content is displayed in your Instagram Shop gallery.

Note: Products are not tagged on the images but are mentioned outside the image.

Key features of Instagram Shop Gallery extension for Magento 2

  1. You can search for images based on hashtags and use them to display similar products that are available in your store.
  2. Display the Instagram Galley on multiple pages of your website. For example, Home Page, Product Page, Top navigation bar, etc.
  3. Choose images that you want to feature on your Instagram Gallery to grab people’s attention. While adding images, you can mark them approved and map your related products to them. After adding, you can select whether you want to display only approved images, images attached to product or both. This can be done under “Image visibility”.
  4. Add the products that you want to link to a particular image.
  5. Display the likes and comments of the Instagram posts on your Instagram Gallery.
  6. Set a limit to the maximum number of images to be shown on a particular page or the Instagram gallery.
  7. You can create multiple galleries.
  8. Arrange product images based on your preference. For example, if you want to display an image at the number 1 position, you can keep the sort order as 1.
  9. You can add as many images as you want.
  10. Enable/Disable the Magento 2 Instagram Shop Gallery extension anytime.
  11. It is a mobile responsive and multi-store compatible module.

Benefits of Magento 2 Instagram Shop Gallery extension

  1. Through your Instagram account, you can ask your followers to share their content, story or photos related to your products using a hashtag, and then feature them on your website. It is generally known as user-generated content.
  2. User-generated content provides free brand awareness which no advertisement can beat.
  3. Having an Instagram Shop Gallery section attracts customers and increases customer engagement.

Final Word

Magento 2 Instagram Shop Gallery extension helps you provide appealing visuals to your store products. It enhances the user interface of your store by adding a beautiful Instagram gallery. Do try out this Magento 2 extension.

Magento Instagram Shop Gallery extension

Magento Instagram Shop Gallery extension is a simple yet effective Magento extension that integrates your Instagram account on your Magento store. It fetches your Instagram account images or images put under a particular hashtag, on your Magento store. It helps you display the user-generated content and allows you to tag similar products available on your store to that content. User-generated content helps people make a better purchase decision.

Instagram Shop Gallery extension for Magento 2 adds an attractive Instagram look to your e-commerce store.

Features of Magento Instagram Shop Gallery extension

  1. Display Instagram Shop Gallery anywhere on your website, be it on Home Page, Product Page, Category Page, Contact Us Page, etc.
  2. You can place the Instagram Shop Gallery link at the footer of your website.
  3. Display the likes and comments of the images on the Instagram Shop Gallery.
  4. Though you can fetch as many images as you want, set a limit for the number of images to be shown in the Instagram Shop Gallery section.
  5. Select the kind of images that you want to display in the Gallery. For example, all the images, approved images or images mapped with related products.
  6. Define the hashtags for which you want to fetch the images. This becomes so helpful if you are running a marketing campaign.
  7. Magento Instagram Shop Gallery extension allows you to create a URL for your Instagram Shop Gallery page.
  8. Carousel mode provides an appealing interface to the Instagram gallery.
  9. Magento Instagram Shop Gallery extension is easy to install and set up with no requirement of technical knowledge.
  10. It is a multi-lingual and multi-store compatible extension.
  11. It is a fully responsive extension that fits perfectly with mobiles, tablets, and desktops.

Final word

Today, Instagram is one of the leading social media networks having a massive user engagement rate. Hence, having an Instagram Gallery section on your Magento store can be a great idea to enhance the user experience. Moreover, products attached to Instagram images can increase the conversion possibility. Do try out the Magento Instagram Shopping Gallery extension.

OpenCart Instagram Shop Gallery extension

OpenCart Instagram Shop Gallery extension fetches the user-generated content as well as the content from your own Instagram business account and displays it on your e-commerce store.

What is User-generated content?

Any type of content, be it images, videos or text, that is shared by a user reflecting a brand promotion, is known as the user-generated content.

Have you ever run Instagram contests based on user-generated content? A contest where you ask your followers to use a particular hashtag and share their story or a picture highlighting your product, to win some exciting prizes.

Freelancing platform Upwork asked its followers to share their freelancing success stories using the hashtag #UpworkSuccess and provided a chance to win $1000 Visa Gift Card.

Coca Cola’s “Share a Coke” campaign was a huge hit in 2014 when the Brand asked users to share their pictures while enjoying the drink, using the hashtag “ShareaCoke”.

Considering the importance of user-generated content, KnowBand introduces the OpenCart Shop Gallery extension that helps you display the user-generated content on your eCommerce store and link your products to the content shared by the end-user. If you have launched a marketing campaign, you can share the received responses on your e-commerce store.

OpenCart Instagram Shop Gallery extension lets you add Instagram images or videos to your e-commerce store, be it through your own Instagram account or by using hashtags. You can use those images to tag similar products available on your store and display it to your store visitors. Attractive product images can help you drive more sales.

Features of OpenCart Instagram Shop Gallery extension

1. Add as many photos as you want

You can fetch numerous images from the Instagram platform. OpenCart Instagram Shop Gallery extension provides the option to fetch images from your own account(personal or business) or you can consider using hashtags. For example, if you are running a campaign for a particular hashtag, you can display the images related to that hashtag on your store.

2. Create categories for your Instagram Shop

Add a category(tag) to your Instagram shop and define the hashtags for it to put related images under that category. In simple terms, all the images under the defined hashtag will be displayed under the added tag, in your store.

3. Tag your store products on the images

You can tag your products on the content that matches your products. It helps people make a better purchase decision.

4. Choose a layout

OpenCart Instagram Shop Gallery offers two layouts to display the Instagram feed- Carousel view and Grid view. Moreover, you can choose the layout design for multiple pages like Home Page, Product Page, Category page, etc.

Apart from these features,

You can provide a name to the Instagram tab that will be displayed to your store visitors.

You can mark images as “Featured” and display it on your Instagram Shop Gallery.

Products tagged on the images can be viewed under “Tagged with Products”.

For a particular category, you can choose the maximum number of images to be displayed under it. Choose the Layout type and also display the Follow us link.

You can display the like and comment count

Customize the color of the “Follow us” button.

Customize the Instagram Gallery according to your own choice.

Final Word

Instagram user count crossed the 1 billion Mark on June 2018 and the numbers are growing significantly. It is being actively used by the people, especially the youth and most people even find it more interesting than Facebook. Do you know, more than 95 million posts are shared on Instagram daily? With such active participation of the users, showcasing the user-generated content at Instagram, on your OpenCart store can be an ideal way for your business to create brand awareness and increase sales.

Do check out the OpenCart Instagram Shop Gallery extension to know its complete features and benefits.