Twitter tests a ‘Buy’ button

Trying to tap into the mobile commerce market, Twitter tests a ‘Buy’ button.

For months now, there have been rumors about Twitter’s plans of trying to make its presence felt in the e-commerce market. A few users in the U.S. will see the ‘buy’ button on the Twitter app on Android and iOS. The new feature will have a ‘Buy’ button embedded in posts and users can buy a product with a few clicks.

This buy button will seek to increase revenue of the micro blogging website that has previously relied on advertising for all of its income. Unlike its previous e-commerce efforts with companies like Amazon and American Express – users had to send a public message with a special hashtag to buy a product – they will, instead, have to click on a ‘buy’ button which would lead them to entering their credit card details.

Group Product Manager, Tarun Jain said, “This is an early step in our building functionality into Twitter to make shopping from mobile devices convenient and easy, hopefully even fun.”

In August 2013, Twitter hired the Ticketmaster CEO Nathan Hubbard to lead the company’s commerce efforts, right before it went public. This is the first commercial initiative by Twitter since hiring Nathan Hubbard. Twitter named 19 entities that would be sold through the new ‘Buy’ button, which includes musicians, non profits and retailers.

In July 2014, Facebook, Twitter’s biggest rival began testing a similar buy button on its website.

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