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You’ll soon be able to shop on Snapchat thanks to a new e-commerce feature, says board member

By Saqib Shah February 18, 2016

Snapchat World Lenses

Snapchat has been working hard to develop its Discover feature, which is dedicated to third-party media content from major publishers, such as Comedy Central and Sports Illustrated.

Now, Snapchat board member Joanna Coles claims that the Discover feature will soon expand into e-commerce, allowing users to buy products from selected brands, reports Re/code.

Coles, who serves as the editor-in-chief at Cosmopolitan (which also happens to be a Discover partner), claims the e-commerce function will be introduced on the “Sweet” Discover channel.

“Sweet is a channel on Snapchat that Hearst and Snapchat have done together, and the tagline is ‘Love something new every day,’” Coles said. “But at some point that will morph into an e-commerce platform so you will be able to buy from it.”

Anyone who has watched Sweet’s content on Snapchat will understand why it makes a good fit for Snapchat’s move into online shopping. The channel often features products from brands, alongside short text descriptions and even the price. Therefore, it wouldn’t come as a surprise if Snapchat added a buy button next to some of Sweet’s featured items.

snapchat shopping discover sweet channel — 1. Products on the Sweet Discover channel

snapchat shopping discover sweet channel 2 — 1. Products on the Sweet Discover channel

Cosmopolitan, which is part of the Hearst publishing stable, is also planning to go down the e-commerce route on the ephemeral messaging app. Speaking of Cosmopolitan’s efforts to generate revenue via its Snapchat channel, Coles said: “clearly [through] e-commerce but I don’t think necessarily the tech bit is quite there, quite yet for how we would like to do it.”

Related: Snapchat for iOS

In regards to the tech, one advantage Snapchat has is that it already rolled out a payments feature in the form of its money transfer service, Snapcash. Access to its users’ payment information should make implementing the e-commerce function a lot smoother. We have reached out to Snapchat for a comment and will update the article accordingly.

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