It was announced today that Shopify and Facebook are teaming up to launch a ‘Buy’ button that will enable people to buy items found in the news feed without having to leave the world’s top social network.
This feature has been in the works for some time now, dating back to July 2014. It was initially reported that Facebook would be teaming up with Stripe, the company that powers Twitter’s Buy button, but it looks like Facebook has decided to go a different route.
Shopify revealed that a small group of merchants already have access to this feature, so you may have come across it already. Today the beta test is expanding to include a variety of businesses.
Built with user privacy in mind, Shopify promises that making purchases through Facebook is safe and secure. Whether or not you want to save payment information with Facebook for future purchases is entirely up to you. However, saving you payment information is said to make purchasing easier, especially on mobile.
A group of US-based Shopify merchants will receive invitations to use the new Buy button starting today. If you are among the chosen few, a message will show up on the Home screen in your Shopify account over the next few weeks.
Once the Facebook sales channel is added to your Shopify account, you can start posting products with buy buttons. In addition, you will also have the option to promote those posts with paid advertising. All customer and order information that comes in from Facebook can be manged through Shopify.
If you’re a Shopify merchant who is interested in using this feature, but have yet to receive an invite, there’s a link at the bottom of Shopify’s announcement where you can sign up to express your interest in joining the beta test.
Today’s news continues the trend of companies adding proprietary call-to-action purchase buttons to their respective platforms. Twitter started the trend this past September, Pinterest announced in February that it will soon be rolling out a Buy button, and news broke last month that Google will soon be adding a similar button of its own.
