According to a Buzzfeed report, Twitter’s “Buy” button project is being stopped. Most of the 25 person “Buy” team has left the company, or has been assigned to teams that are devoted to customer service or dynamic product ads.
Although it doesn’t seem clear, it appears that social commerce isn’t as popular as once hoped.
According to a BuzzFeed source, “people are not buying on social media right now.” In this case, it’s pretty obvious that trying to continue a service that many people aren’t using on the microblogging network just isn’t a good idea. It does appear that dynamic product ads are doing quite well, and customer service is a big focus for user retention.
Although social commerce was a big thing during the time of Dick Costolo (Twitter’s former CEO), things have changed once Jack Dorsey took the helm.
The current focus remains on increasing commerce through proven performance models. In a provided statement by Twitter to BuzzFeed, the current plan for Twitter is to fully move into, and continue, to invest in dynamic ads. It’s speculated that social commerce could be revisited down the road when they are more ready for it.