Ecommerce customers as "audience", merchandising as "content"

We've started to think of our various digital media investments as ways of aggregating and/or monetizing a digital audience.  Obvious, perhaps, but leads us to think about things in new ways.

Consider ecommerce, for example.  From the standpoint of audience, ecommerce is a way of attracting an audience by interesting them in buying something.  An ecommerce site has, in this way, a lot in common with a content site:

• The research for the purchase is of course, great content in and of itself.


• The merchandising of the purchase, aside from not derailing the transaction, can please and delight the customer as well


• The cross-sell and up-sell options are opportunities to start new cycles of research, merchandising, and purchase

It's a bit like playing cards for money as opposed to playing cards for fun.  The cards pull in the audience, and playing for money makes the cards more exciting.