Meta, Mark Zuckerberg’s company, is seriously considering reviewing its policies on online e-commerce. If during the pandemic the e-commerce features of social media experienced a moment of strong expansion and success, for some months now Meta has been considering reviewing its policies on online shopping activities, assuming, not a drastic aba ndo no, but a strong downsizing.
The protagonist of this possible revolution is Instagram, which, as mentioned, in the two pandemic years increased its interactions also thanks to purchases, and is now suffering a sharp downward turn, given the decline in user interest in online purchases.
Now that the pandemic emergency is over, and with it the lockdowns, Meta’s top management has been observing for months now a growing disinterest on the part of users towards in-app shopping, a phenomenon that triggers inevitable reflections on the very maintenance of the function on the platform. For this reason, rumours coming out of the United States reveal a U-turn: the Zuckerberg-owned platform will scale back the in-stream shopping programme, as well as the entire shopping project on Instagram.
Confirmation to this effect also comes from the American portal ‘The Information’, which published an internal memo circulated by Instagram in which it is reported that the social network is ‘planning to drastically downsize its shopping functions’ in order to concentrate its efforts directly on advertising. The article also points out that ‘Meta Platforms is moving away from some long-term projects to focus on building its short-form video business‘.
META REVOLUTION
On Meta’s part, there is a change of business horizon aimed at concentrating its funding on other, more profitable sectors that are more functional to the company’s asset management. This is a significant change from the initial plans of the social giant which, on the strength of the data recorded during the pandemic, thought it would focus on in-stream shopping as a source of income. The forecasts, however, had to be confronted with social changes that have repositioned the normality of social life as a practice and not an exception, also imprinting e-commerce with a regression in uses.
The choice of the US company, experts explain, has therefore focused on massive investments in advertising, which is instrumental in increasing revenue and putting the accounts in order. At the end of July, in fact, when presenting the figures for the second quarter of 2022, the holding company of Facebook, Whatsapp and Instagram reported a drop in its revenue with a one per cent drop in revenue.
INVESTMENTS IN ADVERTISING
Precisely in order to close the revenue gap, Meta, also in communications to shareholders, confirmed that new ideas and lines of development will focus on attracting new investors and advertising companies that can find the right investment opportunities in the group’s social. Instagram will be the first test case for this new bet.