Yoox Net-a-Porter launches shoppable Instagram accounts

Followers of the Net-a-Porter and Mr Porter accounts will be able to buy fashion items without leaving the app after the new functionality is added “in the next few days”.

The luxury retailer’s founder and chief executive, Federico Marchetti, told the World Retail Congress (WRC) the move was aimed at giving customers “a better experience that is more seamless and more instant”.

In March 2018, Instagram unveiled a suite of tools that allowed users to purchase products directly from in-app photographs for the first time.

It enabled retailers to tag products in their Instagram posts, alongside product and price information, meaning customers could use it as a shopping channel.

Earlier this year, Instagram said it was taking that one step further, trialling in-app payments in the US in a pilot including Nike, H&M and Zara.

Instagram said at the time it would look to add more brands “in the coming months”.

Speaking at WRC in Amsterdam today, Marchetti said: “Announcing this evolution with Instagram shopping is because we believe mobile is a way and a tool to serve [customers] better. Well over 50% of our revenues are though mobile.”

Marchetti said the move was part of a wider digital focus that started when he founded the business 20 years ago. He added: “When I started in 1999, I tried to put together two worlds that were completely distant and quite opposite [fashion and digital]. But I saw that one day they were going to converge completely and become one world.

“In the last two or three years, you have seen all the fashion brands become more and more digital. There is not one CEO in the world that doesn’t have digital as their top priority.”