Exclusive: Forever 21 turns Instagram into shopping tool

Los Angeles - Forever 21 Inc.’s social strategy has always been to mix compelling and creative branding with the ability to directly purchase items. Working with Philadelphia-based visual social media marketing company Curalate, the fast-fashion retailer has taken that strategy to new heights by allowing customers to buy goods from its Instagram page.



“Curalate helped us turn what was a purely a branding tool into a revenue driver,” said Mario Moreno, global social media manager marketing, Forever 21, Los Angeles.



Working on an existing relationship with Curalate, Forever 21 selected the firm to take care of all the back-end setup work to turn its Instagram account into full-fledged e-commerce platform.



“It was a simple setup process,” recalled Moreno. “Curalate used their existing Like2Buy tool, which we were already familiar with.”



After Forever 21 posts an Instagram image, the retailer includes the product URL to the image posted in Curalate’s Like2Buy tool and submits it for publishing.



“We can choose to showcase key items on the features page or allow our customers to discover the product,” Moreno said. “From the customer side of things, all they have to do is like the product they want to buy and click on the Like2Buy link in our profile to shop the featured or liked product.”



Forever 21 promoted the launch of Instagram commerce through email marketing, social channels and its blog, and continues to do so on a regular basis. Instagram is now one of Forever 21’s top three-performing social channels contributing to the revenue generated on all its e-commerce sites.