Instagram announced that starting in March, it will no longer allow creators to tag products in live streams.
Instagram said, “Starting March 16, 2023, you won’t be able to tag products in Instagram livestreams. This change will help us focus on providing the most valuable products and features to our users.”
The change marks a further shift away from online shopping for Meta. In February, the company removed the shopping tab from Instagram’s family dynamics; in October, it shut down live shopping on Facebook. But stores on Instagram aren’t completely gone. Instagram says, “You can still open and run your store on Instagram, and we’ll continue to invest in the shopping experience for users and businesses, including tweets, stories, the Reels short video feature, ads and more.” Other live features are unaffected.
With online shopping becoming hugely popular in China, many tech companies are investing heavily in QVC-style online shopping. While Meta is backing off, other social platforms are still developing shopping tools. For example, last November TikTok began testing its in-app shopping feature in the United States. TikTok is also reportedly developing a real-time shopping feature in the U.S.; YouTube allows creators to sell products directly on the platform thanks to a partnership with Shopify; and Amazon’s live shopping platform features many videos.
