Twitter’s looking to take another step towards streamlined in-app commerce with the launch of a new partnership with Shopify, which will enable Shopify merchants to list their products on their Twitter Professional Profiles, with each item, when tapped, then redirecting users to the Shopify product page to make a purchase.
As explained by Twitter:
“We built a Twitter sales channel app, available in Shopify’s App Store and through the Shopify admin, which enables merchants to connect their Twitter account to their Shopify admin and onboard onto our Shopping Manager – the entrypoint to our suite of Twitter Shopping tools where merchants can access and manage our shopping features.”
Those shopping features include a carousel display of products on your profile, and/or a dedicated product display page, with Shopify-connected listings for such now being updated in real time, reflecting your Shopify inventory.
“When they’re ready to purchase, shoppers can checkout on the merchant’s website. Starting today, we are also expanding beyond the beta testing phase for Shop Spotlight and Twitter Shops and making both features available to all merchants in the US”
Twitter initially announced its Shop Spotlight (originally called the ‘Shop Module) last July, adding onto its Professional Profile tools.
As shown here, the Shop Spotlight is a dedicated space at the top of your business profile where you can showcase your products.
“When people visit a profile with the Shop Spotlight enabled, they can scroll through the carousel of products and tap through on a single product to learn more and purchase seamlessly in an in-app browser, without having to leave Twitter.”
The dedicated Shop tab meanwhile is another Pro profile element, which takes users to a dedicated display of up to 50 products in a separate tab.
Twitter’s Professional Profiles were initially only available to selected merchants, but now, all users can convert their Twitter profile to its business option, which provides additional display features for brands, including business category, opening hours, location info, etc.
And now, for Shopify merchants, you can list products too, facilitating direct connection to your purchase pages.
But it doesn’t extend to tweets specifically just yet. Twitter is working on product listings that will display ‘Shop’ buttons in tweets, but they’re not available yet, and they may not end up being a free option, like these new product display tools.
But they are coming, and in conjunction, these new eCommerce tools could be a great way to better connect your product listings into real time tweet discussion.
Twitter’s new Shopify integration will initially be made available to all US Shopify merchants.