Twitter Inc. may soon turn into a virtual shopping mall with millions of tweeted products for sale.
The company on Wednesday said it has joined with several e-commerce sites to make it easier for merchants of all sizes to sell their wares directly on the social-media service.
Local boutiques and big brands plugged into online commerce platforms Shopify Inc., Bigcommerce Inc. and Demandware Inc. will be able to add a “buy button” to a tweet allowing users to click through to purchase a product.
Retailers can also turn regular tweets with a buy button into an ad. The buy button will only be available to U.S.-based merchants.
The announcement comes a few weeks after Twitter joined up with online payments startup Stripe Inc.’s Relay service, which lets merchants sell products through a buy button that developers can easily place inside their apps.
These tie-ups mean the number of merchants that will be able to sell their goods on Twitter will increase from hundreds to millions, marking the first significant expansion of commerce on the service since it began testing the buy button last year.
That in turn should mean more revenue for Twitter. The company will either take a cut of the transactions, require brands to commit a certain amount of advertising spending, or a combination of both, according to a company spokesman. Twitter is currently testing out different models.
Twitter is the latest company to join the buy-button craze as retailers search for new ways to promote their products, and social-media companies try to make it easier for users to buy things without leaving the app.
Pinterest Inc. added a buy button this summer, while Facebook Inc. began running tests last year.
Without the buy button, Facebook, Pinterest and Twitter have been the top three social-media traffic drivers for merchants, in that order, according to Satish Kanwar, director of product at Shopify, which makes software that helps retailers sell goods online. The Ottawa-based company, which has more than 175,000 customers, has joined with all three companies.
In September, while announcing its tie up with Stripe, Twitter’s head of commerce, Nathan Hubbard, said there are about 50 million tweets each month in which users say they want or need something. In addition to selling regular merchandise through a buy button, Twitter has dabbled with exclusive offers like selling a limited number of tickets to an NBA playoff game or to a music concert.
(Published by The Wall Street Journal - September 30, 2015)