Magazines Integrate Ecommerce Capabilities to Websites

Content Manager

Essence magazine has a new “Beauty Matchmaker” tool which helps women find foundations, lipsticks and eye shadows that complement their individual skin tones and color preferences, according to Mashable.com.

Women are presented with various options from different retailers, including Sephora and Drugstore.com.  They can add products to an on-site shopping cart and check out without leaving the magazine’s website.

Teen Vogue’s ecommerce integration will come this summer with a Back-to-School shop on TeenVogue.com.  Readers will be able to shop across a range of retailers with a single, on-site checkout system, according to the article.

NYC-based startup 72Lux is powering both ecommerce integrations.  The startup is also known for WSJ Select, The Wall Street Journal’s curated shopping guide and beauty blog Into the Gloss, among others.

The startup allows readers to shop across a range of retailers and check out using a single form – all without leaving the publisher’s website, according to the article.  At other magazine websites, that is not the case.  Conde Nast’s Allure magazine is one of the few that has seamless checkout integration, but only offers product from one retailer, Beautybar.com.

Other publishers such as Vogue and Elle link to retailer’s sites earning an affiliate fee for every transaction.  This is the easiest for publishers, but less convenient for shoppers, who must take additional steps to add items to a cart; register and check out at each website, according to the article.

Teen Vogue and Essence will receive a percentage of every sale made through each of their websites, though affiliate fees vary by retailer.