Almost 84 percent of customers look at at least one social media outlet before making a purchase, revealed Pew Research Center research. The statistics from Inmar Intelligence further showed that more than half of socially engaged buyers have made a purchase using a social media platform.
According to CB Insights, the creator community is a $104B market. In order to enhance growth even more, better monetization strategies are required. And, while social commerce is still in its early stages, adoption has been strong, and technologies to make checkout simpler are needed.
With the acquisition of Tipser, a Swedish-based tech company that facilitates commerce on any digital platform, Bolt, the checkout and shopper network startup, has taken another step ahead in its aim to democratise commerce. The deal was closed at an undisclosed valuation.
Bolt, situated in San Francisco, just raised $393M in Series D funding, bringing its total capital raised to $600M.
Both Bolt and Tipser are made to allow customers to check out right away when they find something they want, and the two technologies will work together to improve Bolt’s Remote Checkout service. By leveraging Tipser’s turn-key publisher marketplaces, touchless merchant interfaces, and headless implementation capabilities, Bolt will be able to build on Tipser’s technology.
“Tipser and Bolt both want to make it possible to check out from anyplace. “Our acquisition of Tipser couldn’t be more complementary to the future of remote checkout,” said Ryan Breslow, Bolt’s founder and CEO.
Consumers can buy things directly from sites like online newspapers, mobile marketplaces, price comparison sites, social media platforms, and search engines using Tipser’s technology. Marcus Jacobsson, the business’s co-founder and CEO, founded the company in 2012 with Axel Wolrath and Jonas Sjöstedt.
Bolt Future Plans
Bolt will be hiring another 100 people. To coincide with the company’s recent announcement of expanding into Europe, Tipser’s presence in Sweden will now also act as Bolt’s European headquarters.
Apart from the acquisition, Bolt is developing Remote Checkout, a service that allows shoppers to make a purchase right at the moment they find something they want.
The new function, which Bolt has been working on for over a year, was inspired by Instagram Checkout, which is also a tool that allows users to explore products and check out right from the app, according to Breslow.
“With the demise of tracking and cookies, we can see the necessity for native checkout so retailers can track conversion,” he continued. “It’s better for customers if they don’t have to click on a million different things.”
The direct one-click checkout, engagement with Bolt’s network of shoppers, and the opportunity for merchants to enhance conversion rates while receiving orders through different channels and creating direct relationships with visitors are all features of Bolt’s Remote Checkout. It also converts anonymous visitors into registered users and monetizes traffic on the site.
Jason Wagenheim, president and CRO of media publisher BDG (previously known as Bustle Digital Group), found the new capability of publishers and creators being able to monetize traffic going to their sites very intriguing. Bustle, EliteDaily, and Fatherly are among BDG’s brands.
