The swimwear industry in the United States has seen a growth rate of 10 percent in the first few months 2018 over the same time last year, and those purchases are increasingly being generated directly from Instagram, according to marketing executives and analysts.
Digital sales have become one of the fastest-growing segments in retail, and the photo-sharing platform provides users with a casual forum to display their favorite items.
U.S. retail sales of swimwear were approximately $3.6 billion when Instagram launched in 2010. They rose to $4.6 billion last year -- for an average annual growth rate of about 3.2 percent, according to the NPD Group's Consumer Tracking Service.
For example, swimwear sales of American Eagle Outfitters' Aeire brand have more than doubled in the last two years.
Smaller brands that have limited reach have also reaped the rewards. At Lumahai Swimwear, about 75 percent of sales traffic is generated through the company's Instagram account, according to co-founder Sofia Garreton. The California start-up has more than 23,000 followers on Instagram.
Summertime is year-round on Instagram where beach postings from Australia, South America and Africa are all over news feeds when most of the U.S. is in a deep freeze.
Instagram now has 1 billion monthly active users, up from 800 million users in September 2017, the company said in June.