01202 237370
If you don’t know about Snapchat then where have you been? The social media platform is best known for its short, sharp picture and video sharing & messaging service has slowly been evolving since its inception and has openly been dipping its toe in the eCommerce world.
In 2015 co-founder Evan Spiegel’s start-up invested in swipe-to-buy shopping start-up and following this move has gone on to launch an eCommerce advertising partnership with Target, the second-largest discount retailer in the United States, and Lancôme, the internationally distributing French luxury perfumes and cosmetics house.
In true Snapchat fashion, they have featured promotion for the latest X-Men movie set to be released here in the UK, with the $16 billion start-up app allowing its users to purchase tickets to view the film through Snapchat, too.
The in-app ad campaign for X-Men: Apocalypse features the first-ever full Snapchat lens takeover. This means that the filters put over their faces to alter their appearance have been replaced by those with an X-Men theme. However, the biggest achievement for Snapchat and Twentieth Century Fox is the capability to buy tickets without leaving Snapchat. This is a clear indicator that the platform will be aiming to venture in large strides towards expanding into the eCommerce world.
How Does It Work?
After a brief preview of the new X-Men movie runs, users have the option to swipe up to access more information about the movie and to buy tickets via MovieTickets.com’s Web site or Fandango. Snapchat itself doesn’t give you a ticket for the film—it simply hosts third-party commerce openings within the app. But the fact that Snapchat is providing eCommerce opportunities to companies to sell through their app may come in handy when their team come to analysing whether its own users would consider purchase other merchandise through Snapchat in the future.
They Know How To Do It!
You may or may not be aware, but Snapchat is already superbly successful as an advertising platform. They boast a projected revenue of $300-$350million for 2016 alone. The news that users will have the ability to make purchases of film tickets through the app certainly hints at co-founder Mr Spiegel’s significantly bigger goals for the company.
For a short period, Snapchat did offer in-app purchases, whereby users were able to pay to use a collection of lenses/filters or to re-watch old Snaps. Additionally, users also now have the option to pay to design their own filters, which are special overlays that communicate the “where and when” of a Snap.
Service from the app, Snapcash, is already available as a built-in payments system in the US, with plans in motion to roll it out here in the UK sooner rather than later. The service works by having users enter their credit card information, and then allows users to send money back and forth to friends.
Next Up For Snapchat?
Developing and building a swipe-able eCommerce as an extension of its current platform is certainly achievable, it would seem. With this in mind, the future for Snapchat users may well see them being able to make a variety of purchases on the platform as well as using it for its original means as a picture messaging service, and now a chat channel. This could, of course, change the outlook for Magento eCommerce websites in the future to stay in touch with the progression and development of eCommerce trends.