Keep.com has successfully integrated women’s two favorite things: Instagram and shopping. The website has assembled a list of the top hundred or so of Instgram’s most influential fashionable users. What they do is follow these users to see the products and clothing they use and wear, then they locate such items and connect their customers with ways to purchase them online. They have yet to find a way to streamline their data collection so the process needs work in my opinion. Currently, if a woman posts a picture of her purse on Instagram, Keep.com employees are simply asked to identify the brand or something similar. The goal of the website is to make Instagram “shoppable.”
I think if the company really wants to be profitable, they need to work with the Instagram users. If they directly contact the users, they can get more exact information and also encourage promotion of their own brand. For instance, if I were a user working with Keep.com, I would post a picture of my #ootd (outfit of the day in Instagram jargon) and caption, “Like this look? Check out Keep.com for outfit suggestions and styling tips.” They would get the clothing information direct from the me and save a lot of time that would be otherwise spent scouring the internet for a similar pair of shoes.
The website is still up and coming so I think over time, they will become more streamlined as their popularity grows. In my opinion, it’s a great idea to integrate the billion dollar mobile application and the multi-billion dollar industry of online shopping.