For the past year or so companies have been working to streamline the buying process by cutting out the need to toggle between several pages to purchase a product. There’s one social network that’s decided dipping its toes into the world of e-commerce apparently isn’t worth it anymore: Twitter has shifted its focus away from the concept of a “buy” button.
BuzzFeed News reports that Twitter has dissolved its 25-person commerce team and ceased development of its “Buy” button.
“Buy” buttons aren’t entirely disappearing. The company’s current “Buy Now” option is still live, but no new features will be added to the platform.
“People are not buying on social media right now. They are still buying, for the most part, on mobile web,” a source familiar with Twitter’s commerce team’s inner workings told BuzzFeed News.
The decision to disband the “Buy” button team was made, in part, to shift the company’s efforts on other, more profitable, initiatives like dynamic product ads.
These ads shown to people based on their browsing history have performed well for Twitter. In fact, the company said in a shareholder letter last month that the ads average double click-through rates and double the conversions of regularly promoted Tweets.
A rep for Twitter tells BuzzFeed that the company made a “change three months ago to increase investment in commentary by moving fully into dynamic product ads after seeing great results.”
We’ve reached out to Twitter for specific comment on the future of the “buy” button. We’ll update this post when we hear back.
Twitter Disbands Commerce Team, Ceases Product Development On “Buy” Button [BuzzFeed]
by Ashlee Kieler via Consumerist