Twitter first introduced “buy” buttons last year, and it’s about to expand the service.
The company has announced new partnerships with well-used e-commerce platforms Bigcommerce,Demandware, and Shopify. Merchants using the services to sell their products will now be able to use them on Twitter, writes Ingrid Lunden for Tech Crunch.
New partnerships to drive social commerce on Twitter
Further partnerships have been announced with retail brands such as Best Buy. The chain will use Stripe to drive sales directly in Tweets. As it stands the “buy” button will only be visible to U.S. users, but it is a move in the right direction for Twitter as it trues to build revenue streams.
“The goal for all our commerce initiatives on Twitter is simple: make it as easy as possible for businesses to connect directly with, and sell to, customers on Twitter,” reads a blog post from Nathan Hubbard, Twitter’s head of commerce. “With Buy Now, businesses can drive more conversions and remove much of the friction in the mobile purchasing process.”
In September 2014 Twitter announced the original “buy” buttons in partnership with Fancy, Gumroad, Musictoday and Stripe. Twitter has now been announced as an early partner for Stripe Relay.
Twitter getting serious about commerce as a revenue stream?
Today’s announcement means that Twitter’s “buy” buttons could now reach millions more merchants. The company still has to make them attractive to merchants and consumers.
So far the company has not provided details of how the original “buy” buttons have fared, but it is telling that they did not get any mention in the company’s Q2 earnings call. It seems as though these latest moves are the start of a serious effort to drive revenue through commerce.
For the e-commerce platforms, the deal is a way of ensuring that they are well-placed to benefit from future growth in social commerce. So far social media has not shown itself to be the ideal platform for online shopping, but there is potential.
“Social platforms are at the center of the democratization of retail. Partnering with Twitter and using the Demandware open APIs, Twitter Buy Now will give our retailers a new tool to engage with customers and drive purchases,” said Tom Ebling, CEO of Demandware, in a statement.
