Magazine publishers tap e-commerce revenue stream | WARC | The Feed
You didn’t return any results. Please clear your filters.

Magazine publishers tap e-commerce revenue stream
E-commerce has become a vital third revenue stream for publishers alongside digital advertising and subscriptions; for Future plc, this is now its fastest-growing division.
Context
A 2018 change to Google’s algorithm gave greater prominence in search results to shopping recommendations from “trusted” sites, a shift that opened up new opportunities for magazine publishers such as Future, Immediate Media and Bauer Media.
Future spent two years building an in-house system that automatically adds links to products from sellers that the publisher has a revenue-share agreement with and is now reaping the benefits, the Financial Times reports.
Takeaways
- Last year, Future plc grew commission from retail partners by 36% to £216m – more than a third of total revenues.
- Readers buy more than 43,000 items every day after clicking on links in articles written by Future journalists.
- Future is expanding its e-commerce operations into the US, last month launching Marie Claire Edit, which enables readers to browse styles recommended by the magazine’s editors and shop stores via a single site.
- Rival Hearst is opening The Tower, an e-commerce marketplace made up of four individual stores with one cart, one platform and shared back-end technology from media brands Elle, Bazaar, Town & Country and Esquire, WWD reports.
Sourced from Financial Times, WWD [Image: Charisse Kenion on Unsplash]
Email this content