What if users could shop and check-out on Twitter? 🤔

Last month Twitter confirmed that they’re testing a new way to display tweets via adding a “shop” button and integrate product details directly into the tweet itself, including the product name, shop name, and product pricing.

As a Twitter user and product designer, I look forward to seeing what it could be. Before Twitter unveils the features, I’d like to work on that as a side project and see what I could come up with. If you’re also interested in that, don’t go away, and let’s dive in.

Questions

Questions to ask before diving into the design.

• Who’re the Twitter users?
• What makes Twitter unique to its users compared to other social media platforms?
• What’re the characteristics of Twitter’s users?
• What’re the e-Commerce opportunities on Twitter and how to put that into my design?

Discovery

1. Twitter and its Users

Design insights 💡

Twitter Users come to the platform to keep up-to-date with the latest news and share it with others instantly. Hence, the design of the interface should be simple and consistent with the brand attribute, in order for users to easily make a purchase.

2. Unique Characteristics of Twitter’s Users

• Twitter users are in a receptive mindset

This is particularly important for advertisers, as academic literature shows that long-term memory encoding relates closely to purchase intent.

• Twitter users are influential

Twitter’s audience is influential far beyond Twitter, which is of great value to brands. 78% of US Twitter users like to give their opinion about things they’re knowledgeable about or interested in (vs 66% US online population).

• Twitter users purchase behaviors

Twitter users are willing to pay more for quality products (66% vs. 58% for online pop.) and to save time (54% vs. 42% for online pop).

Design Insights 💡

Twitter users are the perfect catalyst for any marketer’s campaign messaging. In the design, we should encourage their existing behaviors, such as easily sharing a product review or retweet the CTA of a product page.

3. e-Commerce opportunities on Twitter?

• 40% of Twitter Users Made a Purchase Based on a Tweet

According to the Digital Marketing Institute, 40% of Twitter users purchased a product after seeing it advertised on the platform. That totals to 132, 000,000 potential buyers. On average, Twitter users shop online 6.9x a month, while non-users shop online just 4.3x a month.

• Influencers on Twitter drive sales

Twitter influencers have the ability to impact the purchasing decisions of followers. With 49% of Twitter users saying they relied on influencers compared to 56% listening to friends.

• Influencer x Brand

Research showed that those who were exposed to brand Tweets had a 2.7x lift in purchase intent over participants who did not see an advertiser Tweet. When participants were exposed to a campaign that featured both brand and influencer Tweets, the lift in purchase intent more than doubled to 5.2x.

Design Insights 💡

The tweet has a powerful impact on users’ purchases and the Tweets that featured both brand and influencer double this power. When designing the shopping experience, Tweets should be prioritized.

Ideation

Here I came up with 4 approaches.

Decision Process

Approach 1 — Shop Tab

Pros:
1. A e-commerce design will greatly enhance traffic.
2. More possibilities in introducing the promotions and campaigns.

Cons:
1. According to my findings in the discovery stage, Twitter users mainly use this platform to follow news and influencers. A new tab is a big change and may dilute the main attribute of Twitter. I talked to some of my friends who are Twitter users and asked for their opinions about having a shop tab on the home screen. Their feedbacks were negative.
2. Tweets that featured both brand and influencer double users’ purchase intent, the store design could not take advantage of this.

Approach 2 — Shopping Card & Approach 3 — Labels (icon with text, clickable)

Pros:
1. By putting the shopping card or labels on the “Tweet” and “Retweet”, brands and influencers could collaborate to promote the products and boost the sale and keep users stay on tweets.
2. In this approach, shopping is greatly immersed in the tweets and matches the existing behaviors. The longer users stay on the home page, the likelier they are exposed to campaigns and make a purchase. Users could take steps to find and buy the product right away when they’re inspired by something they see in the tweets.

Cons:
1. When using labels, product information is limited.
2. The shopping card requires more screen space and scrolling activities.

Approach 4 — Live Shopping

Pros:
1. “Live Shopping” is a trending way of selling the product.
By applying the feature of “Go live” on Twitter, brands and creators bring commerce and content closer together in a seamless, engaging, and interactive viewing environment.

Cons:
1. Compared to the traditional usage of Twitter, “go live” requires a longer learning path for the users, so for the MVP, “Live Shopping” may not be the best solution.
2. The most important feature of Twitter and the users be familiar with is the “Tweet” & “Retweet”, therefore the entry point of the product should be displayed on the home page by using the “Tweet” and “Retweet”.

Conclusion
In order to maximize the impact of the campaign, the better way is to pair both brand and influencer. I believe Approach 1 & Approach 3 could take the best advantage of it and match the existing user behaviors. I included lo-fi mockups for Approach 3 where I make use of the “labels” of the store and product.

Lo-fi Mockups

Wrap up

I found this topic is very interesting to dig into especially given the recent growth in the social commerce sector. This design is based on limited research and some of my assumptions within a short time frame. My solution is kind of an exploratory approach that represents my understanding of this topic, and I really appreciate it if you could share your feedback and let me know your thoughts.

Thank you for reading!

Reference

1. https://sproutsocial.com/insights/new-social-media-demographics/#Twitter
2. https://digitalmarketinginstitute.com/blog/20-influencer-marketing-statistics-that-will-surprise-you
3. https://www.businessofapps.com/data/twitter-statistics/
4. https://www.bigcommerce.com/blog/ecommerce-guide-to-twitter-advertising/#your-twitter-advertising-options
5. https://blog.twitter.com/en_us/a/2016/new-research-the-value-of-influencers-on-twitter.html
6. https://blog.twitter.com/en_us/topics/insights/2018/defining-what-makes-twitters-audience-unique.html
7.https://www.pymnts.com/news/social-commerce/2021/twitter-testing-shopping-card-ecommerce-feature/
8. https://venturebeat.com/2020/03/08/the-future-of-commerce-is-shoppable-video/