With new online businesses popping up all the time, as well as a growing demand for easy digital transactions, it’s no wonder social platforms are eager to tap into their share of the market.

In the past few weeks, both YouTube and Snapchat have announced plans to take on the world of e-commerce, with unique ideas for targeting. Just days ago, Snapchat revealed its acquisition of Spring, a shopping app which lets users follow their favourite fashion brands and shop from an image-based feed, similar to Instagram’s. Checkout is all completed via mobile, and users can also follow specially-curated collections from influential icons and designers. And to us, the best thing about the app is that new brands are joining the startup all the time, meaning users will soon have a huge array of shops to choose from. So where will Snapchat’s involvement come in? At the moment, it seems that the app might be able to provide Spring with an additional boost of funding- the company needs around another $5 million to add to the $25 million it raised last month. If Snapchat and Spring partner, this, in conjunction with Snapcash- (the payments feature Snapchat launched last year that allows users to pay each other), Spring’s brands might soon become Snapchat’s advertising partners, with users then being able to make direct transactions from within the app.

While Snapchat’s move is still in the stages of speculation, YouTube has made clear plans for e-commerce, soon enabling viewers to see in-ad product descriptions, prices and click-through links, allowing them to directly access an item on a brand’s site. The announcement comes after YouTube’s connection to Google Shopping technology, allowing the site access to a multitude of retailers and products. This marks Google’s first step into competing with existing giants such as Amazon and eBay, enabling the company to take advantage of YouTube’s position as a minefield for product review and demo-style videos, in-video advertising possibilities, and ability to capture a greater amount of customer data.

On top of this, the company has also been exploring a new buy button for viewers, allowing them to purchase directly from an ad, and this will be available to YouTube viewers on their mobile devices too. And of course, this new feature is already in the pipeline for Facebook and Twitter, both who are aiming for shopping directly from within posts and tweets themselves. Facebook announced last year that it would be testing out its new feature, which is housed as a shoppable option within brands’ product posts. Users were presented with an image of the item, its description, the ability to choose sizing, enter billing and shipping details, and click buy, completely on-post. Shortly after, Twitter also revealed that it would be collaborating with its test partners, including Burberry and Home Depot, to trial a new buy button. In a similar way, this works by having the user expand a brand’s product tweet, with he or she then presented with an image of the item, description, and all other purchasing fields. The interesting thing about YouTube’s new venture though, is that shoppable products will also be visible in Google Search, lending brands greater exposure. This should also incentivise the companies to pay for ad space within YouTube videos, thereby allowing Google to monetise even further from YouTube.

What do you think about Snapchat and YouTube’s latest news? And do you like social media’s evolution towards e-commerce? We’d love to hear your thoughts, so please tweet to us @PracticeDigital and share your comments on our Facebook page.