September 18, 2013
Is T-Commerce Better Than F-Commerce?
While the big business story last week was Twitter revealing it has filed for an initial public offering, the 140-character social network also recently showed it was ready to double-down on e-commerce with the hiring of Ticketmaster’s former CEO as its first head of commerce.
"To me, Twitter is a cardiogram of the passion of the live moment," Nathan Hubbard said in his announcement tweet in late August.
Twitter plans to partner with retailers rather than sell physical goods itself and will also partner with mobile payments suppliers. In 2010, Twitter started introducing sponsored tweets and in-stream video advertising, touting its ability to customize messages based on each user’s interests, as well as being able to provide real time data back to advertisers about where users are and even what they’re doing.
Speaking to the Los Angeles Times, Mr. Hubbard said Twitter is aiming to "get people in the moment to buy and to act on their passions. That to me is the opportunity. I look at Twitter as one of the greatest discovery and distribution platforms in the world."
As an example, he told the Financial Times that stores promoting during a live sporting event or TV show might create a "powerful conversion moment for a commerce opportunity."
Some questioned the opportunity given Facebook’s challenges with F-Commerce.
One critic was Forrester Research e-commerce analyst Sucharita Mulpuru who wrote in a column on Forbes.com that while the potential to tweet offers from nearby stores has been hyped, FourSquare found limited success in such efforts. She added, "It’s just hard to see what can happen in the confines of 140 characters that could drives sales other than, well, a sale."
But others saw the opportunity for impulse purchases.
"It makes a lot of sense for Twitter, since a lot of online advertising is commerce related, and as a platform, they should be able to integrate more closely with online retailers," Colin Sebastian, an analyst at Robert W. Baird, told Bloomberg.
Chris Teso, CEO of Chirpify, a platform that facilitates automatic purchases on Twitter and other social networks using hashtags, told Mashable that unique and limited-quantity items do sell best on Twitter, though he also believes the platform can "absolutely work for more than just impulse items."
Adidas and Forever21 are among Chirpify’s clients who have used Twitter to sell direct.
- Twitter Hires Commerce Chief to Add Shopping Via Tweets – Bloomberg News
- Ex-Ticketmaster CEO: Twitter to get users to shop ‘in the moment’ – Los Angeles Times (tiered sub.)
- Twitter Commerce: A Wow Or An Eh? – Forbes
- Can Twitter Make ‘T-Commerce’ a Thing? – Mashable
- Twitter appoints first commerce head – Financial Times (tiered sub.)
BrainTrust
Recent Discussions
Discussion Questions
What do you think of Twitter’s potential as an e-commerce tool? How does the opportunity differ from Facebook, Pinterest and other social networks?
Poll
I don’t expect Twitter to become a digital destination for making purchases (any more than Facebook was).
I do think that Twitter is a valuable tool for pre-shopping and expect that we’ll continue to see improvement in how shoppers can leverage their social connections on Twitter to help them make purchase decisions.
All of these social channels will continue to introduce new functionality to remain relevant and attractive for acquisitions. This could work well; the market is wide open for this kind of service.
Instinctively, I’m with Jason on this, although even social media haters like…ahem… should probably admit it’s really too early in the game for anything more than (semi) educated guesses. That having been said, Chirpify??? Lord, give us strength….
I think Pinterest has seen the success it’s had to date driving commerce primarily because it’s visual. I think consumers’ desires are best animated by images, not text. Of the big social network platforms, Twitter is still the most text-based and I think that limits the commerce potential.
I agree with Martin: The Web is becoming much more visual; this is why you see many businesses utilizing video when a prospect comes onto their websites. Being that Twitter is largely textual, with limited ability to display videos, I don’t think Twitter will explode as a major e-commerce site.
I think it can lead to some impulse purchases, especially if Twitter partners with major retailers and links credit card accounts, as Twitter is doing. But unless a social network can really utilize visual elements, I don’t see where it will make a major impact as an e-commerce tool. This is where Pinterest has really benefited. I could see Tumblr gaining a similar benefit, as it is largely visual as well. But Facebook and Twitter aren’t based on visual elements as much as those two networks, so the e-commerce potential they’d have would be much more limited, in my opinion.
As more of an impulse medium than a social medium, Twitter does indeed have advantages over Facebook.
But the greater opportunity extends beyond the Twitter platform to Actiontags as Chirpify is promoting. This is the ability to use hashtags to #buy, #donate, #enter contests, and the like. Consumers register their payment information on Twitter, reducing the friction of taking action. Brands prompt users to take action. Here are a couple examples:
1. Tweet #Enter #MichiganZone to win 2 tickets to next week’s game
2. Tweet #Buy #AdidasCard to get a $50 Adidas gift card for $25
Simple, impulsive, and satisfying…that is, until drunk hashtag actions strike Twitter users the way drunk posts afflicted Facebook users.
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I don’t expect Twitter to become a digital destination for making purchases (any more than Facebook was).
I do think that Twitter is a valuable tool for pre-shopping and expect that we’ll continue to see improvement in how shoppers can leverage their social connections on Twitter to help them make purchase decisions.
All of these social channels will continue to introduce new functionality to remain relevant and attractive for acquisitions. This could work well; the market is wide open for this kind of service.
Instinctively, I’m with Jason on this, although even social media haters like…ahem… should probably admit it’s really too early in the game for anything more than (semi) educated guesses. That having been said, Chirpify??? Lord, give us strength….
I think Pinterest has seen the success it’s had to date driving commerce primarily because it’s visual. I think consumers’ desires are best animated by images, not text. Of the big social network platforms, Twitter is still the most text-based and I think that limits the commerce potential.
I agree with Martin: The Web is becoming much more visual; this is why you see many businesses utilizing video when a prospect comes onto their websites. Being that Twitter is largely textual, with limited ability to display videos, I don’t think Twitter will explode as a major e-commerce site.
I think it can lead to some impulse purchases, especially if Twitter partners with major retailers and links credit card accounts, as Twitter is doing. But unless a social network can really utilize visual elements, I don’t see where it will make a major impact as an e-commerce tool. This is where Pinterest has really benefited. I could see Tumblr gaining a similar benefit, as it is largely visual as well. But Facebook and Twitter aren’t based on visual elements as much as those two networks, so the e-commerce potential they’d have would be much more limited, in my opinion.
As more of an impulse medium than a social medium, Twitter does indeed have advantages over Facebook.
But the greater opportunity extends beyond the Twitter platform to Actiontags as Chirpify is promoting. This is the ability to use hashtags to #buy, #donate, #enter contests, and the like. Consumers register their payment information on Twitter, reducing the friction of taking action. Brands prompt users to take action. Here are a couple examples:
1. Tweet #Enter #MichiganZone to win 2 tickets to next week’s game
2. Tweet #Buy #AdidasCard to get a $50 Adidas gift card for $25
Simple, impulsive, and satisfying…that is, until drunk hashtag actions strike Twitter users the way drunk posts afflicted Facebook users.