Buying Stuff Via Hashtag

What’s the Latest Development?

Making spending even easier for the tech-savvy, Twitter and American Express announced this week that they are creating a new feature that enables cardholders to buy items by attaching a special hashtag to the end of their tweet. Once they’ve added the hashtag, they will receive a reply from American Express with a separate confirmation hashtag. Then they have 15 minutes to retweet with the second hashtag and confirm the purchase. After that, the item is sent to their billing address using free two-day shipping. American Express will offer special “Twitter buys” for particular items starting on Wednesday.

What’s the Big Idea?

It’s the latest offering from the two companies, which have been working together since March to provide deals to American Express customers. Bringing actual purchasing into the game “allows Twitter to try out the mobile e-commerce market — the company recently said that 60 percent of its 200 million active users log in through a mobile device at least once a month.” These users also tend to spend much more time on Twitter in general, and are “169 percent more likely to use Twitter while shopping” than other users.

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Read it at The Washington Post