Online payment network Skipify is working with Google to allow consumers to shop within their emails. 

The new program, the Shoppable Email program, allows Gmail users to add items to their cart and check out based on real-time product information within their emails, Skipify says. 

The arrangement is fueled by Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) for email, a technology that enables shoppers to purchase products without having to link to a web page. 

In July, Verizon Media announced that it was working with Walmart to enable homebound consumers to fill a shopping cart with essential groceries from Walmart within Yahoo Mail.

Brands can join Shoppable Email without changing their email provider in most cases, and there is no additional email coding required of merchants, Skipify says.

AMP is an open-source framework designed to make mobile pages load faster. Extended to email, it leads to “more engaging, interactive, and actionable email experiences,” Google said in 2018. 

But AMP, while central to these high-profile programs, has been growing slowly, as Skipify seems to acknowledge. “We are in the very early stages of a shift to unlock commerce and payments within and across channels,” states Ryth Martin, CEO and Founder of Skipify.

It is also not clear if these individual programs will be restricted to the separate ESPs, limiting circulation for brands.   

Shoppable Email will allow brands to join the program without changing their email provider, and merchants will be relieved of additional coding requirements Skipify says. 

Skipify claims that merchants trying the program so far have seen revenue increases and lower unsubscribe rates. 

The goal is to to “help merchants bring shopping into the inbox for the first time,” Martin says. 

MediaPost.com: Search & Performance Marketing Daily