Shopify’s latest acquisition will help business market their online stores with messaging apps.

The Canadian e-commerce company recently announced that it will be acquiring Kit CRM, a virtual marketing assistant that uses simple text messaging to assist businesses in accomplishing their marketing needs for their online stores. Businesses that connect Kit to their store can manage their social marketing with this virtual marketing assistant, which works with five online marketplaces. Acquiring Kit will give Shopify a notable conversational commerce opportunity.

This marketing trend could help business owners run their operations with greater effectiveness.

Conversational commerce is a major up-and-coming marking trend. According to Small Business Trends, it primarily pertains to using messaging and chat interfaces to interact with companies, brands, services, etc. that until this point have had no real place in the “bidirectional, asynchronous messaging context.” With the help of this marketing tool, end-users and customers are able to talk to brands via instant messaging applications like WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Slack, and others.

The Chief Marketing Officer at Shopify, Craig Miller, commented on the recent acquisition announcement saying that Shopify believes messaging apps are the doorway for the internet on mobile and that conversational commerce represents a massive opportunity for their company.

Conversational commerce could change the way consumers make online purchase decisions.

In addition to acquiring Kit, Shopify has also been busy with developing commerce bots for Facebook Messenger that will enable business owners to have improved interactive and engaging communications directly with their customers.

In recent years, messaging apps have significantly increased in popularity to the point that in some cases they’ve become more popular than social media platforms. With this level of popularity, conversational commerce may end up proving to be a fundamental shift from standard commerce. It may also end up changing the way that consumers make online buying choices and even how they communicate.

“Kit addresses a real pain point for merchants and is one of our most highly rated apps in the Shopify App Store. We look forward to having the Kit team join Shopify and help us define the future of conversational commerce together,” Miller stated.

Codes for baseball-themed mobile games are the new prize to be found inside America’s favorite junk food.

Cracker Jack, America’s favorite caramel coated popcorn and peanuts mix, which is famous for the iconic prizes found in each bag, is trading in its traditional toy surprise in a new approach to appeal to mobile consumers. Soon, those who dig into their bag of the sweet treat will find Cracker Jack mobile game codes instead of the classic toy.

Mobile technology will bring the new iconic prize to life.

The mystery prize that was once found in each bag of Cracker Jack will be replaced with stickers featuring digital codes for mobile games, providing mobile users with “baseball-inspired mobile digital experiences.”

In a recent press release, Haston Lewis, the senior director of marketing at Frito-Lay – the company that owns Cracker Jack – said that “The new Prize Inside allows families to enjoy their favorite baseball moments through a new one-of-a-kind mobile experience, leveraging digital technology to bring the iconic Prize Inside to life.”

According to the Huffington Post, the new prizes will be available in four themes: Dance Cam, Dot Dash, Baseball Star and Get Carded. The Blippar app, which is available for both Android and iOS, will be required to activate the prize.

The new Cracker Jack mobile game codes sticker prize is part of a broader marketing effort to maintain consumer appeal.

Not everyone who loves the tasty popcorn snack, which has been around since 1896, is likely to be happy with this prize change. For some, these little toys have become collectibles. In fact, Cracker Jack prize collecting is actually a serious hobby for many long-time fans and there have been several books published on the subject. However, be that as it may, companies need to make changes to ensure that they continually remain relevant to present day consumers.

A spokesperson from Frito Lay, Joan Cetera, commented that the change in prize design is part of a much larger marketing effort to stay relevant within a fast-changing consumer landscape.

In addition to the new Cracker Jack mobile game codes, the brand’s logo and packaging will also be restyled.