Instagram shopping picks up in city, young entrepreneurs cash in on trend

Bertila Raj, a 20-year-old law student, has her Instagram page for jewellery called ‘OMF store’, which she started two years ago. She updates the page with the current trends and has 3,900 followers. She said Instagram has helped her reach a large audience as it is user-friendly.

“It wasn’t too difficult for me to increase the number of followers. I had some loyal customers through whom it reached places. Now I earn nearly Rs 10,000 per month,” said Bertila. She said that she has dealers in Jaipur, Kolkata and many other cities from whom she gets the products.

K Raghu Ram (26), who finished his M Com, started his apparel business through Instagram and has a page called ‘Bubbles Fashion’. He also owns a shop in West Mambalam but said that the shop has got recognition through his Instagram page.

“My shop was in a remote area so many weren’t aware of it. Now, after opening my page on Instagram, my products are reaching a wide audience,” he said.

Instagram has an option to advertise these pages through ‘Pay and Promote’, where a fee is levied from sellers. The platform has become a popular for shopping with an enormous number of pages which offer a variety of goods at an affordable price.

While Insta shopping gains steam, small traders like M Rasheed (33), who owns a bangle shop in T-Nagar, are affected. He said that they just had to face the threat from shopping websites earlier, but now with Insta users owning shopping pages, their business has taken a hit.

“Instagram has brought shopping closer and made it easier. So people are reluctant to step out. Though we offer a much reasonable rate, customers still prefer online pages,” said Rasheed. He also pointed out that the shoppers in T-Nagar have considerably reduced, even during weekends.

Mahalakshmi Saravanan, a social media expert and founder of Women Entrepreneurs India, said the trend is visibly picking up in the city. “It is good to see a lot of brands tapping the potential of Instagram shopping and giving customers more choice,” she said.