Social networking website Twitter recently announced that it will be entering the e-commerce market by introducing the new Buy button. The Buy button feature allows user to get additional details about a certain product which might include payment, shipping and pricing information.
According to Business Insider, Twitter will release the Buy button feature to a small number of United States users. The company added that it will eventually roll out the feature to other regions depending on the outcome of the test phase.
However, e-commerce integration to social networking sites has failed in the past. When Facebook acquired startup company Karma in 2012 and turned it into the Gifts feature many were thrilled at first. As it turned out, the Facebook Gifts feature proved to be unsuccessful and was eventually deactivated.
The new feature was the brainchild of Twitter head of commerce Nathan Hubbard who joined the company in 2014. Before joining Twitter, Hubbard was CEO of Ticketmaster.
According to Forbes, Twitter is slowly losing its ground as the second biggest social networking site to newer social network apps like Snapchat, Kik and WhatsApp.
Twitter's problem not only stems from upcoming social network apps, the company's growth is hitting an all-time low as well. In the first quarter of 2015, Twitter's user growth slowed down to 18 percent. In the third quarter of 2014, Twitter's growth dwindled to 23 percent and continues to deteriorate in the fourth quarter with 20 percent growth rate.
Meanwhile, CEO Dick Costolo announced that he will step down as the head of the company. Twitter chairman and co-founder Jack Dorsey is rumored to step in as the interim CEO.