• by Klay Huddleston , May 16, 2014

This week, Amazon and Twitter announced a partnership that allows Twitter users a way to add products featured in their Twitter feed directly to their Amazon cart. They can retweet a product with the hashtag #AmazonCart.

While this highly publicized partnership is a first for Amazon, it isn’t a first for social commerce. Chirpifyis already offering a similar Twitter hashtag feature, and companies have been dabbling in social commerce for more than five years, making some interesting discoveries along the way. While the courtship between Amazon and Twitter may seem like a no-fail parlay into social commerce, there are many nuances that make social commerce anything but a simple transaction.

#AmazonCart Concerns:

Privacy
Twitter is largely a public social media forum, and if users don’t set their profiles and tweets as private, their potential purchase patterns could become public. Blocking tweets from being public isn’t a solution because it limits one of the main reasons why a brand would engage in social commerce in the first place.

Winning The Buy Box
Another consideration retailers and brands will have to ponder is winning that ever elusive Amazon Buy Box. All attributes being equal, the Amazon Buy Box goes to the lowest price seller, which is typically Amazon. As a result, Fullfilled by Amazon (FBA) and Marketplace sellers may promote a product page through #AmazonCart that ultimately drives a purchase for Amazon. For brands that have a retail relationship with Amazon, this is not a concern, but for others, they may be promoting a product for a competitor.

Journey and Mind-set Problem
The largest concern is at scale. Consumers are not in the mind-set to assess or make a purchase when scrolling through their Twitter feed. Social media is a great forum for inspiration and discovery that may eventually lead to purchase, but history shows customers rarely switch into conversion mode when following up-to-the-minute news and information. This is particularly true for high-consideration purchases and fashion, where the Twitter interface does not incorporate detailed product images and content.

#AmazonCart Benefits:
That’s not to say #AmazonCart is completely invaluable; on mobile, it has the potential to add customer utility.  Right now, apps and Web sites still don’t play nice with each other. Logging into mobile sites is a pain and any link from Twitter is going to open a phone or tablet’s browser and ask for a log-in. This extra step is a roadblock and prevents customers from adding items to cart for later purchase.

Now imagine if Amazon’s Cart or Wishlist worked like Pocket, and in both cases, the Twitter hashtag could overcome the mobile Web site log-in problem. That’s a win for Twitter’s 198 million mobile users because it fuels the Amazon consumer mentality to add items to the cart for future purchase. It would require participation by leading mobile operating systems to make it all work, but perhaps the rumor that Amazon is entering the mobile phone marketis all part of the master plan.

Now that’s a social commerce announcement worthy of mass publicity.