Instagram has rolled out the ability to buy products directly through its main platform.

Now users can instantly purchase items via Instagram posts and Stories without navigating to an external site or store.

This 46 country-wide roll-out is a massive extension of the feature Instagram trialled back in June, which gave businesses the ability to tag their content with links that lead to their stores. 

Marks & Spencers will be one of the first companies to test the brand new function in the UK.

Success Stories

"We're excited to see how Shopping in Stories enable brands to tell an even deeper story about what's behind their products." Instagram wrote in a blog post.

Instagram Stories has experienced incredible growth this year. Back in June, the company reported that the feature was attracting over 400 million users daily - more than double the amount that Snapchat garnered.

In addition to this, recent research highlighted that Influencer #Ad campaigns are on the rise; sponsored content on Instagram has reportly risen by 44 per cent in 2018.

The shoppable function isn't the only new introduction to Instagram. The platform will also be launching an Explore tab, which will curate items and products based on what a user views and purchases.