Social media companies are droolingly eager to become ecommerce platforms. Meta-owned Instagram just removed one more bit of friction by making it possible to purchase through its chat function. Payments go through the company’s Meta Pay service, which captures so much delicious data and will eventually let Meta charge a commission.
With the acquisition of Mexican company, Urbvan, Swvl increases its presence and boosts its growth in Latin America. The Nasdaq-listed transportation startup acquired Urbvan for US$82 million and this expands its presence to 164 cities in 22 countries and boosts its growth in Latin America, where it already has a presence in Brazil, Argentina, and Chile.
Reality check: social commerce is more appealing to companies than users. SimplicityDX reports that 48% of consumers consider social media a great place to learn about products, but 71% prefer to make their purchases directly on a brand site. One big reason is 53% don’t trust social networks with their personal data. Buying on social also raises concerns about accurate in-stock information, customer service, and returns.
Salesforce is buying Airkit.ai, which builds low-code, AI-powered e-commerce customer service agents. You might have thought Salesforce could already do that, but presumably Airkit does it better. It doesn’t hurt that the company founders sold a previous business to Salesforce, the company was partly funded by Salesforce Ventures, and the product is already listed on AppExchange. Price was not announced.