Ecommerce Web Development Services - Twitter, Amex ‘Pay-By-Tweet’ Service Can Buy Items Through A Hashtag

Source - http://socialbarrel.com
By - Francis Rey
Category - Ecommerce Web Development Services
Posted By -  Imagination Print

Ecommerce Web Development Services

Twitter has inked a deal with payments firm American Express (Amex) to launch the first pay-by-tweet service on the micro-blogging website.

On Monday, both firms revealed that Amex cardholders can now buy products through a simple tweet with the item’s hashtag.

The consolidation marks one of the most concerted, ambitious efforts to integrate e-commerce into a social media site.

Leslie Berland, head of digital partnerships and development at Amex, said the payments service wants a simple tweet to turn into a real transaction.

This is a first for Twitter users, who now have the option to reply to a merchant’s offer and purchase an item without leaving the site, she added.

The agreement allows users who link their Twitter and Amex accounts to take offers from merchants via a tweet, with a hashtag that includes the offer.

Given the users confirm after a follow-up from the payments service, Amex said it will push the details to the merchant and close the deal.

Social media – spearheaded by the proliferation of social networking sites – has pushed merchants to pick up the pace for e-commerce on social networks.

But some retailers who tried it on Facebook reported that they had unsatisfactory results on the world’s largest social network.

Twitter itself already tested offers with Twitsclusives, a service that allows merchants to give discount codes for users to shop anywhere.

Twitsclusives have yet to gain traction.

Social networks, such as Facebook, have extended e-commerce as a new source of long-term business.

Still, companies have a hard time to profit directly from transactions on the platform.

Berland said Twitter has no share in revenue from the transactions, as it is Amex’s technology – just built on the micro-blogging platform.

An unnamed source, who claims familiarity with the deal, said Twitter can take advantage of the growth in advertisements from e-commerce, as merchants send promoted tweets on their offers.

More than a week ago, hackers attacked Twitter and stole some of its users’ personal data.

The incident now raises questions on the security measures of the company for payments and e-commerce.

But Amex said it will stop the risk of dupery on the platform by not sharing its account information from Twitter.

The pay-by-tweet service – launched with offers on the Amazon Kindle Fire HD, an Xbox console, and a Sony camera – is available on Amex gift cards.

The payments firm has yet comment on the expansion of a similar service to Facebook.

Although it has no payment feature yet, an Amex service already exists on Facebook and other social networks for merchants to promote their offers.