It's confirmed! Instagram is getting rid of one major feature
Instagram has announced it’s making a major change to the app - and users are sharing a mixed reaction in response. Adam Mosseri, Head of Instagram, has confirmed that the shopping tab within the app will disappear in February “given shifts in company priorities.”
Back in September, The Information reported that Instagram would “drastically scale back” and shift their focus from e-commerce and shopping features, to advertising and short-form videos.
Shopping features were first introduced to the app back in 2018, to allow users to buy products they’d see in photos and videos. Two years later, the company added the Shop tab along with the Reels tab during the pandemic, too - further signalling a focus on e-commerce on the platform. However, in comparison, Reels appeared to dominate over the new shopping feature with IGers.
Now, Mosseri has revealed that scaling back will be going ahead as soon as next month. Starting in February, the Instagram homepage bar will look a little different: The button to create a new post will be in the centre of the tab bar, with the Reels button to the right.
📣 Navigation Update 📣
The navigation is changing in February to make it easier for people to create, be entertained and connect with friends over the things they love.https://t.co/9tR4kIH9d0 pic.twitter.com/DwinENhku7— Adam Mosseri (@mosseri) January 10, 2023
The social media giant have also said it will continue to invest in shopping experiences for people and businesses and that it’ll still be possible to run a shop on Instagram, with users still having the option to shop using their feed, stories, reels and adverts.
Mosseri took to Twitter to say that removing the shopping tab will create a simpler app design, which will aid three things: inspiring people to express themselves, helping people to discover what they love and making it easier to spark connections.
Users responded to the announcement on Twitter - and the comments are a mixed bag. One social media fan said: “This is the best update I've seen yet. Prioritizing creation is great!”
Another person said: “Finally an update i agree with 🤣.”
But others aren’t too happy with the change. One commented: “Let us post videos as videos again, not as reels. I don't care about reels, it's fine that they exist but I just want to post a video to my feed. I don't use TikTok so why would I want to post off-brand TikToks?”
A number of people are also criticising how far Instagram has deviated from its original mission, which is to prioritise photos and put them in chronological order. One user wrote: “Cool. How about making posts chronological again?”
Someone else wrote: “No. Bring back photos. Kill recommendations. Reels are a cheap copy of TikTok. Lose the necklace. Let me see what the people I follow post.”
Watch this space!
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