Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR) has acquired CardSpring to offer its users “in-the-moment commerce experiences.” The San Francisco-based start-up provides payments infrastructure that connects merchants and payments processors. Twitter will continue to offer the service.
Might prove to be a good fit for Twitter
Twitter said in a blog, “we’ve already given users the ability to get deals and discounts, surprise someone with a coffee, or even add items to their online shopping cart — all directly from a Tweet.” The company, also, stated that since it is working on the future of the commerce on the platform, the CardSpring team and technology seems to be the perfect fit.
CardSpring could help Twitter to enable card-linked offers. Users could get a discount coupon from the merchant in the form of a tweet, which requires user’s credit card number. On the second time purchase from the same merchant, online or offline, CardSpring will track the card number and apply the discount. Also, the merchants will get a report on the performance of the offer along with the analytics. The app can give more weight to Twitter among the local businesses, who want to promote their sales rather than retweets and follows.
The startup is already popular among the merchants and developers working with it. Surely, Twitter will give it an edge over others in giving away offers built on its platform. The micro-blogging site is making efforts to make a mark in web’s social commerce portal, and CardSpring could be its ace opportunity to escalate its position.
E-commerce battle
CardSpring responded to the deal saying that it will keep on ramping growth on the platform, and work with the publisher, financial and retail partners to create new, innovative commerce experiences for consumers.
In 2013, CardSpring came up with CardSpring Connect, which is a commerce analytics system that integrates with the merchant’s existing in-store point of sale system. Through the service, the businesses can identify; how their sales are connected to the online promotions with the help of services like Foursquare, Trialpay, Thanx, MOGL, Roximity, Moblico, and OnStripe.
Twitter has been testing a “shop now” or “buy now” button on ads that allow users to purchase directly from the platform. However, Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) is, also, testing a ‘Buy’ button, which will allow the shoppers to purchase straight from the news feed. However, Twitter could enjoy a dominance here because in Facebook users can just like anything, whereas in Twitter they can retweet i.e. sharing the tweet with many more.
