Facebook and Twitter have emerged as excellent and effective mediums for social media marketing. Now both the platforms are striving to enhance their ecommerce capabilities. Probably, they will succeed in establishing themselves as popular e-commerce websites in the coming days.
As per the latest reports, Twitter has announced its acquisition of CardSpring, a payment infrastructure company that enables retailers to offer online shoppers coupons for discounts. The discounts are synced automatically to their credit cards and can be availed when they shop at physical stores. On the other hand, Facebook has started testing a new way for users to purchase products from ads. Business (small and medium size) ads are accompanied by a ‘buy now’ button, which lets the users buy the product without leaving the social media portal.
Twitter’s Acquisition of CardSpring
Twitter is offering users the ability to get online deals and discounts with a simple Tweet. With Twitter as the background platform, CardSpring will enable card-linked offers. Actually what happens is, when a discount is offered in a tweet from a merchant, interested customers are asked to enter the credit card number. Later when the purchase is made, CardSpring would adjust the discount for the specific credit card number. Through these kinds of business promotions, Twitter will become more relevant to local businesses.
Facebook’s New Selling Plan
The “Buy” button that accompanies Facebook ads will be available on both desktop and mobile devices and allows customers to make the transaction directly with the business, without quitting the Facebook page. Moreover, the portal is built with privacy in mind, and the authorities ensure that they have taken adequate steps to make the payment experience safe and secure. Credit / debit card information of the customers will be kept safe and secure and will not be shared with other advertisers. Users have the option to save their payment information for future purchases. The current trial is limited for U.S businesses only.
Twitter’s CardSpring acquisition and Facebook’s ‘Buy’ button are not their first ventures into e-commerce. Previously, Twitter announced a partnership with Amazon that allows users to shop from a Twitter feed. If the customer sees a link with a tweet to an Amazon product, they can reply to it with the hashtag #AmazonCard. In response to this, Amazon will place the product in the shopping cart, which can be purchased later. Facebook already allows customers to purchase gift cards and use them electronically on occasions such as birthdays; for mobile money transfers, and other functions.
Facebook’s and Twitter’s advancements into e-commerce now reflect an overall maturity of the social networking space. Retailers and social media portals that hope to succeed in their online business should include opportunities in a natural way without interrupting the user’s experience in social networking.
