Twitter As Your Shopping Cart: Worst Business Decision Ever

Written by Steven Walling / August 17, 2009 4:43 PM / 6 Comments

TwoTweet is a new shopping cart service that integrates closely with your Twitter account, using it to log in and letting your customers "reply to buy." While it's a cute idea for very small-scale ecommerce, relying on the unstable and insecure platform that is Twitter may be the dumbest business decision you ever make.

TwoTweet isn't designed to replace shopping carts for larger sites, since you can only sell one item at a time with the system. But even for very small businesses, this is a dangerous venture. It doesn't matter if you're selling t-shirts and the occasional album: allowing access to an ecommerce environment with your social network as an identity provider is a supremely bad idea.

Say Goodbye to Guaranteed Uptime

I don't need to explain to ReadWriteWeb readers that Twitter has serious problems with stability and security. Building even a tiny and relatively inconsequential marketplace that depends on one of the most unreliable social networks is about the worst idea I've ever heard for using the social Web to do business.

Shades of Facebook Beacon

On the one hand, at least they asked permission to post to my account, which basically avoids the disaster that was Beacon, Facebook's attempt at broadcasting online purchases. But it still presents a problem in the value proposition: by and large, people don't want their purchases published on social networks, even if those purchases are not the kind that could have really serious consequences.

Another problem is that the site doesn't use OAuth, and I still had to fill out a lengthy form and create an account. With that in mind, I don't really see the advantage for buyers. It didn't save me any time over, say, using someone's simple WordPress site with the standard ecommerce plugins, and it's extremely limiting for sellers.

Comments

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Hi, my name's Ben and I started TwoTweet. First off - thanks for covering the product and I do appreciate the feedback. I sympathize with the concerns over Twitter uptime and reliability, it was a question we asked ourselves in development. We came to the conclusion that these were similar issues faced in early days by eBay, etsy, PayPal and others. We've taken great care to protect users and sellers:

1) We don't store credit card details - PayPal provides secure storage for that.
2) No purchases made via Twitter can be shipped or delivered anywhere besides the account you created on TwoTweet.com
3) TwoTweet asks users to register a distinct set of credentials from their Twitter ones so that spam apps or other schemes that may scrape those illegitimately doesn't wreck havoc here.

For small vendors we obviously believe TwoTweet offers real direct-to-consumer benefits over the headaches of search driven sales in eBay or other channels, encourages closer connection with fans and followers and faster real-time offers.

With more and more ecommerce applications - from Facebook ads and virtual gifts, Twitpay and others, including ReadWriteWeb relying on 3rd party login credentials to create accounts, I think this is an area that will improve rapidly over time in both up-time and security.

Finally, the comments about sign up length and oAuth are well-taken, they are features we plan on including in a coming update, and ironically oAuth wasn't reliable enough during initial development to include.

I would encourage readers to continue to offer constructive feedback and critiques here or directly to us via email at support(at)twotweet.com. This is a product that works with a community and we plan on growing it as such.

thanks,
Ben

Posted by: TwoTweet | August 17, 2009 5:41 PM

Add to that (sorry Ben) that I'll immediately un-follow anyone who posts something with 'reply to buy' in it. I already deal with door to door sales people, junk mail, spam, and tele-marketers (despite being on the 'do not call' list) and I never, ever buy anything based on any of these methods. I don't go to Twitter to shop and will block anyone who tries to sell me things there. I think there are alot like me. Use twitter for PR/Communications - fine if I'm interested in your company - use it for sales pitches / spam and I'm gone.

I secretly think that Twitter has kinda peaked already anyway.

Posted by: Justin Beach | August 17, 2009 6:10 PM

Wow, I thought this was a pretty good idea. Pretty harsh feedback.

While uptime is important, I'm not sure how it applies to this being a bad idea. If Twitter is down, no one is going to see your messages, but how is that a big problem? It's not as if Amazon is switching to only let you login with twitter, that would be a terrible idea, but the delayed delivery of a "reply to buy" message doesn't seem to be a big deal at all.

As far as security goes, I don't see how "reply to buy" is any less secure than anything else. Amazon is protected by usernames and passwords, which this service is also protected with.

As for why this is a GREAT idea, one only needs to look at Gary Vaynerchuck. If he tweets "My favorite $12 Syrah, reply to buy" I might just do so. If Dan Cederholm says "My new book is on sale for 50% off, reply to buy", I might just do so. It's a great social proof mixed with ecommerce play and, while I don't know if Amazon is going to buy it in 5 years for a billion dollars, it's definitely barking up the right tree.

If this "is about the worst idea I've ever heard for using the social Web to do business", then I think you need to look around some more, because this is actually a pretty sweet little idea.

Posted by: BJ Clark | August 17, 2009 8:28 PM

I have mixed feelings about future of Twitter. You can read about some aspects of the platform on my blog http://www.money-era.com/category/monetizing-twitter/

Posted by: Money-Era | August 18, 2009 1:01 AM

Great feedback author Steve...

"worst idea I've ever heard for using the social Web to do business"

I agree. Social websites should focus on their core business in offering unique features and functionalities, and let those companies who lay their hat on fast, reliable, and secure payment processing to handle the heavy lifting for credit card transactions. (a-la Shift4's DOLLARS ON THE NET with i4Go technology)

Posted by: ITS REN | August 18, 2009 9:44 PM

I have used Twitter for a year now and I just knew that there is an e commerce solution which it offers to its users. I sell books online but I might not use TwoTweet for my internet store. There are many shopping cart software such as ZenCart and VPASP which are more reliable for people who want to run such store.

Posted by: Home Business Entrepreneur | November 3, 2009 12:18 AM