Twitter is making its e-commerce efforts stronger with the acquisition of payment startup CardSpring, the company announced Wednesday.
Twitter, the renowned micro-blogging service, is seriously considering its options to dive into direct e-commerce. To bolster its efforts in the new field, the social network site has acquired a payments infrastructure company, CardSpring. The acquisition is an important step towards Twitter's commerce initiative.
San-Francisco-based CardSpring connects merchants to payment processors to create online-to-offline promotions. The startup allows users to link their credit-card accounts to merchants and deals, which will trigger a discount on a certain payment method. CardSpring lets developers create card-linked offers in the form of electronic coupons, loyalty cards and virtual currencies.
Under Twitter's ownership, CardSpring will help retailers advertise upcoming sales and coupons and invite users to link their credit card details so discounts can be applied when the card is swiped.
Twitter explained on its official blog, Wednesday that "we've already given users the ability to get deals and discounts, surprise someone with a coffee, or even add items to their online shopping cart - all directly from a Tweet. As we work on the future of commerce on Twitter, we're confident the CardSpring team and the technology they've built are a great fit." But as Mashable puts it, Twitter's plans for CardSpring are not entirely clear.
"At Twitter, we will continue to grow the adoption of our platform and work with our publisher, financial, and retail partners to create new, innovative commerce experiences for consumers," CardSpring writes on the company's official blog.
CardSpring also offers commerce analytics system that helps business track how their sales are connected to online promotions through its partnered services such as Foursquare, Trialpay, Thanx, MOGL, Roximity, Moblico, and OnStripe. The startup has raised $10 million from investors like SV Angel, Greylock Partners, Accel Partners, Felicis Ventures, and Data Collective.
Twitter will not be alone in jumping into real-time commerce as Facebook announced Thursday that it is testing a new "buy" button for its ads on browsers and mobile devices.
