The Wall Street Journal bets on e-commerce with 72Lux

E-commerce is a key component of a next-generation content model, and the Wall Street Journal has taken a big step in this direction by launching a launching a shoppable gift guide for the holiday season, with more to follow for Valentine’s Day and Mother’s day in 2013, as reported in Advertising Age.

72Lux is “the software that sits behind the site and lets them create any form of content that is shoppable,” according to Heather Marie, 72Lux’s 28-year-old CEO.

Wall Street Journal Select allows readers to purchase the gifts — which range from a $2,900 Tag Heuer watch to a $19.95 book about home-brewing beer — directly from WSJ Select.  Customers can add products from participating retailers, which include Nordstrom, Best Buy, and Coach, to a single shopping cart and pay for them all with one payment.

“The release of the gift guide is really the new beginning of a more-concerted effort to develop additional revenue streams around commerce,” said Alisa Bowen, the chief product officer at Wall Street Journal parent company Dow Jones.

More from Advertising Age here.

Plus, the Wall Street Journal even promoted the site with a full page ad, Monday, December 8, 2012, page b8: