Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey intends to kick off initiatives that won’t be of any benefit to the social network’s core business. As part of this effort, the company has dissolved its 25-member commerce team, according to Alex Kantrowitz of BuzzFeed. This means the development of Twitter’s “Buy” button has been ceased.
Twitter to focus on core products
BuzzFeed reports that the button will remain there but will not be updated with new features. The concept of commerce has not panned out financially in the way Twitter had hoped, and this could be the reason it has decided to move away from it. Twitter will reinvest freed resources in the initiatives that actually draw advertising dollars, such as customer service and dynamic product ads, according to the report.
In an emailed statement, a Twitter representative said, “We made a change 3 months ago to INCREASE our investment in commerce by moving fully into Dynamic Product Ads after seeing the great early results (2x the CTR, 2x the conversion rates) we talked about in our Q1 earnings call.”
Twitter is focusing on DPAs, as a result of which it has more product and an engineering and business focus on commerce, the representative said.
“The bottom line is DPAs work for advertisers and we will continue to invest in that product.”
It is likely that Twitter will reintroduce the idea of buying items straight from the platform, but as of now, the company is de-emphasizing it. BuzzFeed says the members of the company’s commerce team have either left or been reassigned to other groups.
Was the “Buy” button really helpful?
The “Buy” button makes it possible for users to order goods and services straight from a tweet. When users click on the button, they are able to see product information such as size, color, and style without the need to leave the micro-blogging site.
In 2014, Twitter started testing the “Buy” button with major retailers and celebrities like Home Depot, Demi Lovato, Burberry, Pharrell Williams, etc. Last year, it also partnered with e-commerce software companies Shopify and Bigcommerce to expand the button’s reach. However, the company has not provided much data about how many people actually make purchases by clicking on the “Buy” button.
Twitter has not been doing well on Wall Street lately. The company missed revenue estimates, and this caused its shares to dive in April. The company’s user growth has stalled, but rivals such as Facebook, Snapchat and Instagram are witnessing solid growth.
