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Self magazine, Condé Nast's health and nutrition arm, has enlisted price-watching site Hukkster to go tepidly where they've never gone before: Into e-commerce. The start-up site, which alerts users of discounts as they're marked online, is heavily backed by Winklevoss twins, and as Lucy Danziger, the editor in chief of Self, told WWD, it was after meeting them at that this odd pairing came about. "Immediately, they said, you've got to meet the Hukkster girls," Danziger said.
Print mags across publishing houses are trying to lock down e-commerce, like Hearst's Harper's Bazaar shopBazaar feature, or Condé Nast's FarFetch investment, so this isn't totally unexpected. But as Danziger told WWD, basically the magazine didn't have the time or resources to jump into e-commerce, so they outsourced it: "I was looking for a way to create a dynamic shopping experience for the Self reader, but not necessarily go into e-commerce because that's not where I want to spend my attention."
Now, Self.com's swimwear shopping guide and other beauty features will feature a button that allows readers to tag items they like for bargain alerts from Hukkster.
Hukkster Co-Founder Katie Finnegan is excited about marrying the reader experience to the shopping experience with the added bonus of discounts. Per a press release, she notes, "So often when a reader is flipping through the pages of a magazine or through an online trend gallery, she is in a discovery mode and doesn't have a credit card handy. We're excited to help transform this discovery phase into an actual commerce conversation."
· Self Magazine Teams Up With Deal Site Hukkster [WWD]
· Millionaire Winklevoss Twins Invest in Sale Shopping Site [Racked]