Does Twitter Have a Role in E-Commerce?

Twitter is looking at ways it might play in the e-commerce business, which might suggest to some how heated the e-commerce space has gotten. Others might say there is a direct relationship between distribution of perishable inventory and real-time offers that Twitter might provide. 

Twitter CEO Dick Costolo says Twitter is looking at ways to “participate” in transactions that take place on the social network.

“It’s particularly interesting in areas where you’ve got things like perishable inventory, like tickets,” Costolo says.

In the past, for example, Google tweeted a promotion code that people could use for tickets to its IO conference, and about 100 tickets sold in a little over 10 minutes. 

“That’s $55,000 with one tweet in 13 minutes,” said Costolo . Separately, the San Diego Chargers tweeted about tickets that were left for a game, and in a little over half an hour they were gone. Those are concrete examples of how Twitter might build a new business based on liquidating high perishable excess inventory.