In order to make consumers purchase, commerce and content go hand in hand. Magazines add e-commerce features to their contents to ease purchase while online retailers are adding editorial to enrich purchase experience. The cross-pollination of the both leads to the rise of shoppable contents.
Esquire partners with Netpage for the December issue to create augmented contents for the physical magazine. When readers scan the magazine with Netpage app, they not only can clip and share articles digitally in a few clicks, they can also be directed to the online store through a “buy” button when they clip certain items.
Shoppable content is not limited to static entertainment. Powered by YouTube’s external annotations technology, brands like Juicy Couture and ASOS creates point-to-purchase video. Products available to be purchased are overlay with muted boxes in the video. Simply a click on the box will lead users to the online store. According to a Google research, 4 in 10 shoppers visit store or retailer website as a result of watching apparel videos. It seems shoppable video is a logical step for retailers. While the effectiveness is unknown yet, it’s important for the commerce and content to integrate in a seamless way. As the primary function of video should be engaging consumers, overwhelming commercial factor may has a negative effect.
And now, even consumer-driven contents are shoppable. Pinterest’s biggest rival Fancy, is a site for finding great products – that you can actually purchase on the site. It is not built like other traditional shopping portals, but more like a place for discovery.
Shoppable contents are going to appear in more channels and getting more common. The one good thing is shopping become easier than ever. But the question is, how far can it go before we are getting annoyed?
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