Twitter Buy Button Allows User Purchase Directly From Tweets

Twitter has entered the e-commerce market with the Buy button allowing users buy products directly from their timelines.

Rolling out in a limited way in the US from Monday, 8 September, the new feature will only be seen by a limited number of users initially before being rolled out to all users in the US eventually.

Announcing the new feature, Twitter's Tarun Jain said:

"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."

The buy button will only appear on mobile apps first, and not on the company's desktop website.

Twitter says purchases will be completes in "just a few taps". After tapping the Buy button, you will get additional product details and be prompted to enter your shipping and payment information. Once that's entered and confirmed, your order information is sent to the merchant for delivery.

Twitter says security was at the forefront of its thinking when designing the system and the social network says the payment and shipping information you enter is encrypted and "safely stored after your first transaction" which means you don't have to re-enter it and makes future purchases even more straight-forward.

Among the launch partners are musicians like Ryan Adams, Megadeath, Pharrell and Eminem as well as fashion brand Burberry. US retailer Home Depot is also one of the launch partners, though people may be wary about buying goods from it after it was revealed last week that it had been attacked and customer data had been compromised in an attack similar to the one which hit Target earlier this year.

Twitter has not revealed any plans to launch the Buy button outside the US, though if the trial proves successful it is likely we will see it rolled out here sooner rather than later.