Instagram is pulling the plug on the Shop tab at the bottom of the app’s main navigation. In its place, the create post button will revert to its previous home.
The change is slated to come into effect in February with the company saying that it wants to “make it easier for people to share and connect with their friends and interests.”
The Meta-owned photo- and video-sharing app has been testing the redesign since last year and, clearly, it has proven successful with users.
However, this does not mean that shopping on Instagram is done for. The company said that businesses will still be able to set up and run shops on Instagram and that it will continue to invest in shopping experiences across feed, stories, reels, ads, and more.
According to a report by The Information, Instagram is looking to pull back on its shopping features after previously investing heavily in ecommerce tools to try and get users to shop in-app.
The personalised shopping page, which offers tailored product recommendations to users will still exist. However, Instagram did not say whether users will be able to access it or whether the page will continue to exist after the Shop tab is removed.
