Los Angeles — Popular micro-blogging outfit Twitter is leaning on e-commerce as its next big potential revenue stream through a partnership with American Express. Twitter and American Express today forged an alliance that will allow Amex card holders to make certain purchases simply by tweeting.
Dubbed “Amex Sync,” the technology integration will allow customers who sync their cards with Twitter can buy items if they use the special #hashtags. According to WSJ reported on Monday that both parties have confirmed the e-commerce deal, but financial details are quite limited. On a surface level, this is the gist of how it is going to operate:
The company expounded on the move saying, American Express card holders who connect their card numbers to their Twitter accounts can post on Twitter to initiate a purchase of select products, including discounted American Express gift cards, Kindle Fire tablets from Amazon.com Inc. and jewelry from designer Donna Karan. The program will roll out over the next few days.
The company further said, “You can convert a hashtag into more than just a conversation–you can turn it into a trigger that actually can spark commerce,” says Joel Lunenfeld, VP global brand strategy at Twitter.
It functions somewhat like this: AmEx card members need to first sync their eligible cards with twitter. The card member can then use special #hashtags to make their purchase and wait for verification from AmEx. Card members then need to tweet the verification in order to confirm their purchase and voila, their purchase is delivered to the registered billing address.
In fact, Twitter enthusiast would dearly enjoy the new combo and for the launch, AmEx is offering a number of special offers for discounted AmEx gift cards and will expand to include a range of physical products from companies including Amazon, Sony, Urban Zen and Microsoft’s Xbox 360 business.
The best values include first such item is a $25 AmEx gift card, which will go for $15 if you tweet #BuyAmexGiftCard25. Other offers will be rolled out on Wednesday Feb. 13 at noon EST including an Amazon Kindle Fire HD for $149.99 (a $50 discount), an Xbox Controller for $29.99 (a discount of about $10) and an Xbox 360 4GB console with a three-month Xbox LIVE Subscription and two game tokens for $179.99 (which is the price of the console without those extras.) Other products in the promotion are a Sony Action Cam, a Donna Karan-designed bracelet, and an Xbox 360.
According to AmEx SVP Leslie Berland said the aim is to offer a broad selection of products to ensure “an all-embracing impression and reaction from as many card-members as possible to test out this functionality.”
However, depending on the offers, products will be shipped to buyers or picked up in shops. AmEx is working with a long-term fulfillment partner to deliver the orders.
“We are leveraging our unique technology and closed-loop network to introduce a seamless solution that redefines what is possible in the world of social commerce,” said Berland. “We know there is significant power in combining our assets with Twitter’s platform,” he added.
In addition, Twitter and American Express have already joined hands to provide savings to its members as of march, but this is a completely new offer which promises benefits for both AmEx and Twitter. Also, it is not clear yet what kind of cut Twitter would get from this — if any at all.
Finally, the complete catalog of products will be released on Wednesday. This marks a new trend in e-commerce and social media bonanza.
Here is a promo clips:
{iframe width=”640″ height=”360″ frameborder=”0″ allowfullscreen}http://www.youtube.com/embed/CUXQYrn8zds{/iframe}
{iframe width=”560″ height=”315″ frameborder=”0″ allowfullscreen}http://www.youtube.com/embed/0B-Km9vAIwo{/iframe}