merce Conten Content Com Commerce & Content Converge Publishers of all sorts are attempting to broaden their revenue streams with ecommerce initiatives, using high-quality editorial to drive retail activity. By Dan Eldridge merc Com When W e’ve been using the internet to tell stories for 20 years now, and for nearly as long publishers have also been using the internet to grow revenue by selling ancillary goods: from T-shirts and cof-fee mugs to niche enthusiast and B2B products. But in the last three to ve years, the worlds of content and commerce have combined in ways rarely seen before. It was in May of 2010, for instance, when the New York City-based digital media company rillist announced its acquisition of Jack reads, an online retailer o ering stylish clothing and accessories for young men. Today, more than half of rillist’s revenue comes from retail, and the com-pany expects that gure to eventually reach 80%. More recently, the collaboration of content and commerce seems to have become almost par for the publishing course. In late 2013, the beloved shel-ter magazine Domino , which had ceased publication some ve years earlier, surprisingly resurfaced as both a print magazine with a $12 cover price and a website, domino.com, featuring ‘shoppable’ articles. And in August 2014, an ecommerce platform known as BeachMint famously partnered with Condé Nast to take over all operations for the shopping magazine Lucky . Clearly, ecommerce is already well on its way to becoming the publish-ing industry’s next great hope—a revenue-generating lifeline for publish-ers who can no longer survive on ad dollars alone. And yet regardless of the increasingly large numbers of publishers—print and digital alike—that are now experimenting with online retail, it’s also clear that no singular ecom-merce model has yet emerged. We recently spoke with a number of publishers, many of which are grav-itating toward relatively hands-o a liate ecommerce programs powered by strong editorial voices and curated consumer goods. Food & Wine: Thanks to the Time Inc. acquisition, unique collaborations with ecommerce at their core may become business as usual at F&W . It’s easy to assume that Food & Wine , the 36-year-old culinary lifestyle magazine, would be an ideal platform from which to execute any number of potentially lucrative ecom-merce plays. Both its editorial and ad pages are packed with high-end housewares and kitchen gear, for instance. And its readers’ median per-sonal income is just north of $82,500, accord-ing to the magazine’s 2014 media kit. But according to publisher Christina Grdovic, Food & Wine was unusually restrict-ed where ecommerce was concerned during its existence as an American Express Publish-ing title, due in part to the challenges of being owned by a bank. anks to the 2013 acqui-sition of American Express Co.’s publishing arm by Time Inc., however, that scenario has since changed. “I think there’s going to be a lot more ex-citing partnerships coming down the pipe,” 20 PUBLISHING EXECUTIVE • OCTOBER 2014