E-commerce is evolving, fast. For much of the past two decades, Amazon has been the undisputed king of online shopping. Its formula was simple: vast selection, fast delivery, and rock-bottom prices. But a new generation of consumers is rewriting the rules. For Gen Z, e-commerce isn’t just about buying things, it’s about discovering them, being inspired, and feeling seen. And the platform best positioned to capture this shift isn’t Amazon. It’s Instagram.
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Gen Z Doesn’t Shop – They Scroll

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If Millennials ushered in the age of convenience shopping, Gen Z is heralding the era of contextual commerce. Born between the late 1990s and early 2010s, Gen Z has grown up immersed in short-form video, influencer culture, and algorithmic recommendations. They’re less loyal to traditional brands and more responsive to creators who feel authentic. They don’t begin their shopping journeys on Google or Amazon, they begin on TikTok and Instagram.

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Recent data backs this up. According to the 2025 Sprout Social Index, 72% of Gen Z consumers prefer to engage with brands via Instagram, while 60% use it as a primary source of product discovery. TikTok edges slightly ahead in discovery, but when it comes to completing purchases, Instagram holds a crucial edge: 29% of users go on to buy products directly within the app.

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That’s because Instagram has successfully closed the loop from discovery to checkout. A user scrolling through Reels might see a skincare tutorial, tap a product tag, view the item in a brand’s storefront, and complete the purchase – all without leaving the app. That’s not just a frictionless transaction. It’s a new way of shopping.

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The End of Amazon’s Default Status

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This shift presents a real challenge to Amazon, which, despite its scale and infrastructure, is increasingly a utility rather than a destination. Yes, Amazon remains unbeatable when you know exactly what you want. But it’s no longer where people go to be inspired. For Gen Z, Amazon is the checkout counter, not the shop window.

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Recognising this threat, Amazon launched “Inspire” in late 2022, a TikTok-style product discovery feed embedded in its mobile app. But the experiment was short-lived. Inspire was quietly shut down in early 2025, a casualty of the company’s inability to replicate the organic community and visual culture that powers Instagram and TikTok. Amazon can optimise logistics. It can’t manufacture vibe.

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The failure of Inspire is more than a product flop. It’s a signal that Amazon’s model may be structurally unsuited to this new era of e-commerce. Its interface is built for utility. Social platforms are built for immersion. And increasingly, immersion is what drives spending.

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Why Instagram Has the Edge

While TikTok has stolen headlines with the meteoric rise of TikTok Shop, reportedly generating over $1 billion in U.S. monthly sales since mid-2024, Instagram’s strength lies in its depth and polish. It’s where aspiration meets authenticity, where curated content intersects with community trust. That makes it particularly potent in verticals like fashion, beauty, wellness, and home decor – categories where aesthetics and credibility matter as much as price.

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Influencer culture is central to this. But the landscape is shifting. Big-name celebrity campaigns are losing ground to long-tail creators. In Q1 2025, 70% of beauty industry earned media value came from micro- and mid-tier influencers, not macro ones. These are the creators who know their niche, speak their audience’s language, and sell products through storytelling rather than spectacle.

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For brands, this means Instagram is more than a marketing channel. It’s a full-stack e-commerce solution. Pages double as storefronts. DMs handle customer service. Reels serve as both ads and demos. And with Meta investing heavily in native checkout and payment integrations, the platform is only getting stickier.

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Amazon’s Counterpunch – and Its Limits

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To be clear, Amazon isn’t sitting still. It’s actively pursuing partnerships through an initiative reportedly known as Project Handshake, which seeks to embed Amazon product links directly into social platforms like Instagram, TikTok, and Snapchat. The goal: let users discover products in their feeds but complete purchases on Amazon, without leaving the app.

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It’s a smart move, but also a risky one. These integrations could bring Amazon closer to the next generation of consumers, but they also concede discovery to other platforms. Amazon wins the sale, but loses the narrative.

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That matters because the long-term value of e-commerce is increasingly being captured not in the transaction itself, but in the relationship. Brands that live in the Instagram feed become part of a user’s identity. Brands that live on Amazon become commodities, competing on price, delivery, and SEO. If Amazon doesn’t fix its discovery problem, it risks becoming the digital equivalent of a warehouse club: useful, but uninspiring.

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What Happens Next

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The future of e-commerce will not be shaped by who has the most SKUs or the fastest shipping. It will be shaped by whoever controls the moment of intent, the instant a consumer decides they want something. For Gen Z, that moment rarely happens on a search page. It happens mid-scroll, when a creator they follow shows them a new product, a new look, or a new lifestyle aspiration.

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Amazon is still dominant. But it is no longer inevitable. Its relevance will depend on how well it can integrate with the culture and platforms Gen Z inhabits. Right now, Instagram is winning that game.

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For brands, the takeaway is clear: being on Amazon is no longer enough. If you’re not present, and native, on Instagram, you’re invisible to a generation that will soon have the most spending power of any in history.

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Commerce is becoming visual, emotional, and algorithmic. And for Gen Z, the future of e-commerce isn’t a store. It’s a feed.

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