Twitter is testing a ‘buy’ button for tweets on mobile

Twitter is introducing a seamless commerce experience to its users on mobile.

While browsing through your timeline, there’s a chance you’ll now stumble across tweets that feature a large “buy” button. As you might expect, tapping this option will give you further product details and the option to enter your shipping/payment information, before receiving an order confirmation.

It’s a huge move for Twitter and one that emphasises its drive to effectively monetize its service. To launch the new commerce system, the company has partnered with industry stalwarts Fancy, Stripe, Gumroad and Musictoday.

For now it’s just a test; Twitter says only a small group of brands, nonprofits and music artists will be able to use the new “buy” button for now. It will, however, be offering the feature to additional partners in the future. Some notable participants for this initial test include (RED), Burberry and The Home Depot, as well as music icons Pharell, Eminem and Paramore.

In a blog post, Twitter also emphasised the measures it’s taken to ensure security of user information. “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,” Tarun Jain, Group Product Manager for Twitter said. “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.”

While the new “Buy” button certainly increases the functionality of Twitter – and will likely appeal to brands and businesses – it’s yet another evolution of the company’s original pithy tweet. Balancing these new, multi-functional tweets with the simplicity of the core service is becoming increasingly difficult.

Still, the ability to buy something directly on Twitter? Let us know in the comments section down below if you like the idea.

Top image credit: Andrew Burton/Getty Images