Starbucks Canada and Twitter today released Tweet-a-Coffee, an e-gifting program that enables Canadians to send Starbucks gift cards to their friends over Twitter in 140-characters or less. In order to use this service, Canadians have to link their Starbucks account with their Twitter account. Once they’ve done some setup work, users can send a Tweet to @tweetacoffee and the desired recipient’s Twitter handle to let them know about the gift card. They can also include warming hashtags such as #thanks, #congratulations or #justbecause. Once the tweet is sent, Starbucks will send the recipient a link with details about how to claim their $5 gift card and then charge the sender’s credit card. 

 

With the launch of Tweet-a-Coffee, Starbucks Canada and Twitter have taken e-gifting to a whole new level. What’s more, they’ve disrupted the eCommerce landscape. By unveiling this new, unprecedented e-gifting service, Starbucks and Twitter have revolutionized Twitter as an efficient, user-friendly eCommerce platform. Users can now access their Twitter account, link it to their Starbucks account (assuming that they already have one), and send gift cards to their friends. This will change how consumers perform online transactions in the future. Though this service is only limited to Starbucks gift cards for now, it’s predictable that Twitter will likely extend the service and develop it into a more sophisticated purchasing platform. Perhaps in 5 years, Twitter will upgrade its website into a platform where people can purchase shoes or grocery through its social network. After all, with the ubiquity of smartphones and tablets and people’s increased desire for faster, more convenient services (i.e. Amazon’s same-day delivery with drones), it’s likely that Twitter will enable consumers to buy products conveniently through its mobile app while they’re on-the-go or at home. Undoubtedly, Twitter and Starbuck Canada’s new service is a perfect way to kick off 2014.