On Instagram, a Thriving Bazaar Taps a Big Market

The following is an excerpt from an article in:


The New York Times
Saturday, December 15, 2012

On Instagram, a Thriving Bazaar Taps a Big Market

By JENNA WORTHAM

Instagram, the picture-sharing application that Facebook bought earlier this year, has not yet figured out a way to make money. But some of its users have.

These entrepreneurs have realized that they can piggyback on the popularity of Instagram, which has more than 100 million users, and create their own businesses, some of which have turned out to be quite profitable.

They join a long line of innovators who have found creative ways to build new services on top of existing sites and platforms.

Services like Printstagram, for example, let people turn their Instagram images into prints, wall calendars and stickers. A group of designers are building a digital picture frame for Instagram photos. Some early users of the service are leveraging their expertise and sizable followings and starting consulting agencies, advising big-name brands on how best to use Instagram themselves.

And others have simply realized that the app is a great place to post photos of things they are trying to sell. Jenn Nguyen, 26, who lives in Irvine, Calif., has 8,300 followers on Instagram, where she posts images of lavishly made-up women who are wearing her brand of false eyelashes.

“When we post a new picture of someone wearing our lashes, we instantly see sales,” she said.

Ms. Nguyen is part of a wave of entrepreneurial Instagrammers who have transformed their feeds into virtual shop windows, full of handmade jewelry, retro eyewear, high-end sneakers, cute baking accessories, vintage clothing and custom artwork.

Those who want to sell things on Instagram have to resort to surprisingly low-tech tactics. Instagram does not allow users to add links to their photo posts, so merchants have to list a phone number for placing orders, or hope their followers will type the Web address of their store into a browser.

Shoppers seem willing to put up with that hassle. Ms. Nguyen said that during a recent holiday sale, she offered Instagram followers a coupon for 35 percent off their orders. That day, she said, she netted 100 orders, about $4,000 in sales, up from her usual $500. In her photo captions she mentions her online store and highlights products that are new or soon to be sold out.

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