THE E-COMMERCE BUSINESS MODEL

“[What] smart publishers end up doing well is to become a discovery platform for their readers. The best sites aren’t just talking about deals… it’s really about what types of products are out there that reach this bar of ‘we want to write about it’.”

— Stackcommerce VP/Business Development Ben Gafni speaking to WhatsNewInPublishing

E-commerce and mobile commerce (m-commerce) together enable both the instant creation of a need and then the instant satisfaction of that need. Media companies’ brick-and-mortar pop-up stores do the same thing. The media company as a retailer business model can also serve every level of the sales funnel. Media companies whose trusted editorial teams give readers expert reviews of products fulfil a consumer’s need for product-purchase information at the beginning, middle, and end of the funnel. In both cases, the success of publishers’ ecommerce and m-commerce initiatives proves the power of a media company to deliver results to partners and advertisers while also creating two new and potentially robust revenue streams: 1) Direct or commission revenue from product sales, and 2) Advertising revenue from brands who purchase native ads and branded content around the service journalism.