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Twitter trialling buy button

By | Published on Tuesday 9 September 2014

Twitter Buy Button

Trials are beginning for the much mooted ‘buy’ button on Twitter, it was confirmed yesterday, with a limited number of users of the micro-blogging platform – including a number of musicians – being able to insert a button into their tweet that will allow a commercial transaction direct from the message.

Twitter said in a blog post: “This is an early step in our building functionality into Twitter to make shopping from mobile devices convenient and easy, hopefully even fun. Users will get access to offers and merchandise they can’t get anywhere else and can act on them right in the Twitter apps for Android and iOS; sellers will gain a new way to turn the direct relationship they build with their followers into sales”.

Twitter has developed the sell-through functionality with a number of partners, including music industry direct-to-fan business Musictoday. Tests of it will initially be very limited before any roll out gets underway.

Even then, Twitter wants celebrities, businesses and brands to use the sell-through option carefully. The firm’s Head Of Commerce Nathan Hubbard told Billboard: “There’s a self-regulating process that happens on Twitter, which is if you’re alienating your followers, they’re going to leave. It’s the same approach that Twitter has taken as a whole with native advertising; we had to find ways to bring advertising into the platform in a way that enhances the experiences, and doesn’t detract from it”.



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