Twitter Getting Into the E-commerce Game

Photo: Emre Arican/iStockphoto

Facebook commerce turned out to be a total failure, but now Twitter is determined to make T-commerce a thing. Business of Fashion reports that the company has appointed former Ticketmaster president Nathan Hubbard as their first head of commerce. Despite the fact that recent data shows that social media really doesn’t help brands sell retail (only 0.1 percent of retail customers come from Twitter right now), Hubbard will offer retailers new tools to sell from “inside tweets.” The details are still sparse, with vague references to partnerships with “people who have stuff to sell,” Hubbard told BoF. But it sounds like whatever it is, it will be more aggressive than already-annoying promoted tweets. This foray into e-commerce is projected to result in $370 billion by 2017. So, uh, start shopping in 140 characters or less?

Twitter Getting Into the E-commerce Game