Twitter has dissolved its commerce team and paused development on its Buy Button feature, reports Wall Street Journal. Apparently, some members of the commerce team have left the company and others have been absorbed into other teams. This development comes at a time when a number of questions are being raised against the social commerce push by major social media companies. The microblogging platform first started testing the Buy Button feature in September 2014. It allowed users to discover products and offers and make direct purchases from within the Twitter app. The Buy Button essentially functioned like a mobile wallet. Once the payment and shipping information was entered, it was stored by Twitter so users didn’t have to reenter it every time. In October 2015, Buy Buttons were extended to a number of DIY ecommerce platforms like Bigcommerce, Demandware and Shopify, to enable their customers to offer a ‘Buy Now’ option to users, directly through Twitter. The platform also implemented the buy now option for new retailers and brands like Best Buy, PacSun and Adidas etc. It’s worth noting that Twitter had started experimenting with what it called ‘Buy Now’ cards that allowed users to buy a product without leaving the app, in July 2014. In May that year, Twitter partnered Amazon to introduce the #AmazonCart service, which enabled Twitter users to add any product on Amazon’s Twitter feed to their Shopping Cart, and buy it later at a convenient time. In July the service was launched in India as well. Monetization was one of the…
