Ahead of the Black Friday shopping rush, Snapchat is this week launching a new Discover channel called 'Shop and Cop', which will highlight app-exclusive eCommerce deals from chosen brands and enable on-platform purchasing of those items, so you can snap up the deals without leaving the app.

The process is facilitated by Shopify, with Snapchat curating the brands and offers which can appear in the channel.

The deals will appear for a limited time (you can see the two-hour time limit on the offer above), but here's the kicker - Snap will also prompt users to subscribe to the channel, and to the individual retailers participating, in order to ensure that they're made aware of subsequent 'Shop and Cop' offers. That could help boost engagement and awareness, and build your Snap audience.

Snapchat hasn't disclosed if or how it will take a cut of any transactions.

The option furthers Snapchat's eCommerce and on-platform buying efforts. Users can, of course, already make purchases of selected items within the app, but this new option is something of a testing ground both for integration with Shopify (which could be extended to all Shopify merchants) and highlighting of specific deals within Discover, boosting awareness.

And given the 'in-the-moment' focus of the app, limited time offers could do very well. Snapchat will really put the option to the test next weekend (beauty and fashion retailers will be featured for a limited time each across Black Friday weekend), and it'll be interesting to see what the audience response is, and what that means for further Snap eCommerce integrations in future.