Happy Halloween!
TikTok has got some big news this week! The video-sharing social network has partnered with Shopify to enable e-commerce shopping from TikTok stories in the US. This helps TikTok scale internationally in the same way as its Chinese counterpart Douyin which has helped more than 22 million content creators earn over 41.7 billion yuan (US$6.1 billion) in the past year, according to parent company ByteDance.
While video commerce in social platforms continues to be a hot trend, the potential for interactive shopping experiences is huge, and is only getting started. Brands and shopping destinations are exploring new ways that consumers can interact with them in various forms.
Our Top Pick is Estée Lauder’s experiment with voice-activated sample requests, on the Spotify platform. Working with Google Home devices, Spotify listeners can verbally request a sample of Estée Lauder's beauty serum, while listening to personalized Spotify playlists.
This isn’t the first time the beauty brand has worked with Google. In 2017, they launched a beauty app for Google Assistant on the Google Home device that focused on personalization.
In other news, and hot on the heels of Quibi closing down, HBO Max has announced plans to add short-form and podcast content to its mobile app. There'll be plenty of high-quality short-form content available on the market, now that Quibi sadly is no more!
Until next week!
Amazon launches an AR app that works with new QR codes on its boxes
Amazon has launched a fun and playful interactive feature for shoppers to reuse their Amazon boxes.
The e-commerce giant's new augmented reality application works with QR codes on the shipping boxes to create “interactive, shareable” AR experiences. We are watching this space to see how Amazon develops new revenue generating use cases beyond a playful use of packaging.