Twitter partnered with online payment startup Stripe to launch its e-commerce ambitions last year. On Monday, this partnership released a new button that paves the way for an expanded functionality, which now allows all Twitter users to sell their goods by simply tweeting.
The new Buy button is part of what Stripe called "Relay," which is essentially a pack of tools that ensures easy buying and selling for retailers. Here, a Twitter user can post merchandise within a tweet and buyers can purchase it without being redirected to a third-party merchant or payment processing website. The transaction will be made, concluded and fulfilled then and there.
"Almost two-thirds of our users say they bought something specifically because of what they saw on Twitter. ... As mobile and social (media) continue to grow, consumers are going to discover and transact right in the apps where they spend their time every day," Nathan Hubbard, head of commerce at Twitter, said in a Reuters report.
Twitter will not charge anything for transactions completed within its platform. This, however, is the case for now, as the company is expected to do so in the future as adoption becomes widespread, the Wall Street Journal reported. The popular social networking website has been reportedly finding ways to generate revenue, and the new Buy button could be a critical development to this objective.
Relay is not only available in Twitter. It can also be implemented in other apps for companies seeking to capitalize on the exploding mobile market.
"For stores, you can use Relay to enable instant purchases in third-party mobile apps," Stripe said in a statement. "For app developers, Relay is a set of APIs for building great in-app buying experiences."
