American Express launches purchase-by-tweet service for its US-based customers
As we have recently updated our online shop we found this quite interesting:
American Express (Amex) have launched a purchase-by-tweet service for its US-based customers.
Amex members wishing to use the purchase-by-tweet facility must first link their card to their Twitter account via the Amex app. They then need to go to the firm’s Twitter page and select the Favourites section to view which items are on sale and the associated hashtags. Then, after sending an initial tweet to start the sales process, they must wait for a confirmation message from the @AmexSync account. This contains another hashtag that must be posted in a fresh tweet by the user within 15 minutes to make the sale to go through. This does seem like quite a long winded process.
Users are warned that products may sell out, voiding the process, and that they can only buy one of each item. Products from Amazon, Sony and Microsoft are being offered at a discount rate to drive shoppers to use the new service.
Amex’s senior vice president for digital partnerships, Leslie Berland, said that the success of the firm’s existing social media schemes suggested that there was “significant power in combining our assets with Twitter’s platform”.
As security is always at the front of our minds at Paralogic we can understand the long winded process consumers have to go through, however, the long process does make us question the benefits of the idea and whether people would actually use it.