Twitter is making it very easy to buy things on the platform

Sep 8, 2014 13:40 GMT  ·  By

Although it's not a secret that Twitter has been trying for a while now to implement a way to help people shop directly from their feed, things are only now being made official.

“Today we are beginning to test a new way for you to discover and buy products on Twitter. For a small percentage of US users (that will grow over time), some Tweets from our test partners will feature a ‘Buy’ button, letting you buy directly from the Tweet,” the company’s Tarun Jain, group product manager, wrote in a blog post.

This is just an early step towards Twitter’s goals of making the process of shopping on a mobile device easy and convenient.

The feature will help users gain access to various offers and merchandise that they couldn’t get from other locations. What’s better is that they’ll be able to purchase these products straight from the Twitter apps from Android and iOS, without needing to install any additional apps.

This will not be good for users alone, but also for sellers who will now be able to take advantage of the following they’ve managed to obtain in the many months they’ve spent on Twitter.

Buying on Twitter, an easy process

For the first leg of the journey, Twitter is partnering up with Fancy, a social shopping platform, Gumroad, an online marketplace, MusicToday, and Stripe, who accepts web and mobile payments.

The deal between Twitter and Stripe has been in the news for a while now, with rumors going back as far as January about the deal the two were preparing to sign to jumpstart Twitter’s efforts to become a part-time ecommerce platform.

Twitter will be testing the new feature with a bunch of artists and shops, which should soon host various products you can buy. Brad Paisley, Demi Lovato, Eminem, Hunter Hayes, Keith Urban, Megadeth, Panic! At The Disco, Pharrell, Paramore, Ryan Adams, Twenty One Pilots, Soundgarden and Wiz Khalifa are just some of the artists that you should be able to soon find selling items on Twitter, as well as companies like Home Depot and charitable organization Nature Conservancy.

Buying a product on Twitter only takes a few steps. You’ll notice a “buy” button in all the tweets that enable you to make a purchase. After clicking on it, you’ll get some more details about the product, like the size of a t-shirt, for instance. If you choose to go forward with the acquisition, you’ll have to type on your shipping and payment information.

“We built this test experience with your trust and security at the forefront. Your payment and shipping information is encrypted and safely stored after your first transaction, so you can easily buy on Twitter in the future without having to re-enter all of your information. Of course, you can always remove this information from your account. Your credit card is processed securely and won’t be shared with the seller without your permission,” Twitter’s Jain writes.

Here's how Twitter's new feature works
Here's how Twitter's new feature works

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Twitter launches ecommerce platform
Here's how Twitter's new feature works
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