Twitter Launches The Buy Button

Twitter is such a huge platform for many artists, but except for the social currency involved, you wouldn't exactly call it a sales platform. There have been ways in the past to sell things with Shopify, but the sales method was a workaround at best. Now Twitter is trying out a new "buy" button that allows fans to purchase merch, music and tickets from within a tweet.

Although not rolled out to all users yet, the service has a number of artists, brands and charities taking part initially. These include Brad Paisley, Eminem, Panic at the Disco, Wiz Khalifa, Ryan Adams, Soundgarden, Home Depot, Burberry, GLAAD, and Global Citizen.

Twitter has partnered with Fancy, Gumroad, Music Today and Stripe, which have long histories of direct-to-fan commerce, to act as fulfillment centers, but others will eventually follow as the service rolls out more fully by the end of the year.

There's no word on how much Twitter will take from each sale, but there's not doubt it's an income stream that the service really needs. That said, artists with large followings will also be happy at the new opportunity to offer their wares as well.

Lest you might think that Twitter will now turn into sales-only platform, remember that Twitter etiquette still applies, so everyone expects excessive sales hype to be self-regulating.

----------------------------------

Help support this blog. Any purchases made through our Amazon links help support this website with no cost to you.