Could Twitter be about to let people purchase goods through the social network? Planned deal with startup Stripe suggests so
Twitter could be close to letting users purchase products directly through the social media site as the company nears a deal with payments startup Stripe which will allow it to take credit card payments from users.
The deal, which is not yet complete, could be integrated into Twitter’s Cards tool, according to Re/Code, and could therefore allow consumers to buy straight from a tweet.
This isn’t the first time that Twitter has looked at in-platform payment. In April 2013 the company pulled in-stream payments service Ribbon, which allowed users to make payments without leaving a tweet, after only an hour and a half of going live.
Two months before this, Twitter worked with American Express to allow users to ‘sync’ their account information with Twitter to pay for products by tweeting purchase hashtags.
Unofficial platform Chirpify also activates hashtags for marketing and commerce conversion.
However, it is unknown if the deal will go ahead, and if it does, whether it will just be used for digital products, or if physical products will be eligible for purchase through Twitter.
What do you think? Is it a good idea for retailers and businesses to be able to take payments through Twitter?