If you have ever imagined shopping in 140 characters or less, Twitter has made your dreams a reality. The social network platform unveiled a new “Buy” button feature, which will only be available for a few U.S. users on the mobile app during the test.
Twitter said that the goal is to help companies foster direct relationships with consumers and will also help them track sales. The “buy” button is being developed with Fancy, Gumroad, Musictoday and Stripe for early testing and Twitter hopes to bring in more partners soon.
The button is easy to use. Once you hit the “Buy” button on a company’s tweet, the user gets some extra information about the product, including the price. Then, you enter payment and shipping information. Once you hit “Buy now,” the information is sent to the company and the purchase is complete.
Since security concerns are in the headlines these days, Twitter assured users that their information is encrypted and stored after the first purchase. Your information won’t be shared with the companies unless you give the OK and your information can easily be removed.
Demi Lovato, Keith Urban, Eminem, Panic! At The Disco, Paramore, Pharrell, Megadeth, Soundgarden, The New Pornographers, Hunter Hayes and Ryan Adams are among the artists who teamed up with Twitter for the early tests. (RED) and GLAAD are among the groups that signed up.
“This is an early step in our building functionality into Twitter to make shopping from mobile devices convenient and easy, hopefully even fun,” group product manager Tarun Jain told USA Today.
This is Twitter’s latest move to try and show investors that it can diversify and find new revenue streams since going public. The company previously hired Ticketmaster CEO Nathan Hubbard after going public in 2013 as head of commerce.
image of Demi Lovato courtesy of INFphoto.com