In October last year, Meta-owned Facebook also shut down its live shopping feature.
Meta-owned social media platform Instagram announced on Tuesday that it will remove the live shopping feature from next month. The company made the announcement on its help page and said the feature is going away on March 16.
The Adam Mosseri-led company said users “will no longer be able to tag products in live broadcasts on Instagram. This change will help us focus on products and features that provide the most value to our users.”
The social media company announced the live shopping feature in 2020. It is only available in select countries including Canada, the U.S., Argentina, Belize, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Algeria, Armenia, Austria, Belgium, Australia, Bangladesh, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, and Thailand, among some others.
With live shopping, businesses and creators, especially those who are smaller in size, could sell products directly from Instagram. Additionally, sellers could instantly interact with viewers, engage with potential customers in real-time and save their videos after the live broadcast so customers can continue shopping the featured products.
Users, however, will still be able to set up and run their shop on Instagram, the company announced. Other live broadcasting features like the ability to schedule a live broadcast, invite guests to join your live broadcast, and hold a live Q&A will remain unaffected.
The move follows Instagram’s earlier announcement of rolling back the Shop tab feature this month and marks the company’s next big step away from live shopping. In October last year, Meta-owned Facebook also shut down its live shopping feature as it wanted to shift its focus to “Reels” due to a change in consumers’ viewing behaviors.
