BuzzFeed Starts Selling Products Directly to Consumers
https://www.wsj.comBuzzFeed has long recommended products to its audience, earning a cut of the revenue when readers click the links in its articles and buy from the sites that actually sell the goods.
The digital publisher has now introduced a standalone website called BuzzFeed Shopping that lets visitors complete purchases without going anywhere else.
Many publishers earn so-called affiliate revenue, the slice of revenue they get when they help generate a sale, by linking from product mentions to retailers that finish the transactions. But shopping directly on media sites may become more common as consumer habits change and publishers continue to seek revenue beyond ad sales.
BuzzFeed’s move was enabled partly by the relatively recent spread of checkout functionality beyond traditional e-commerce platforms to a range of websites and apps, said Nilla Ali, senior vice president of commerce at BuzzFeed, citing shopping on Instagram in particular.