Facebook, Instagram, and now TikTok has been investing their efforts in social commerce, making it easy for businesses to help sell their products/services. Better add Twitter to the list after I made this discovery on my Android device.
I tipped off Matt Navarra on this new discovery, explaining that a tweet with a link rendered it with the ‘Shop’ CTA and shows item’s price and currency.
This isn’t one of the custom Website Cards by Twitter, which any business can access from the Advertising platform. Rather, this new card displays the following items from a link to the product’s page:
- Product name
- Domain
- Price (including the currency from the link)
- Shop CTA (in blue)
Spotted first in Middle East
Whenever any of the social networks test out new features, they usually perform them in established/mature markets like Brazil, India, USA, or UK. Seeing this on Store974’s account, which is based in Qatar, is quite a surprise.
When LinkedIn was testing Stories out in select markets, somehow I gained access to it but I wasn’t even residing in those countries. That was followed by the official global release in stages near the end of 2020.
Since its discovery, the news has already been covered by many publications (Mashable, TechCrunch, DigiDay, Android Police, Social Media Today, 9to5Mac, TechRadar, and Slash Gear). Each one has either referenced TechCrunch or another major tech publisher, citing that Twitter has confirmed they’re testing out eCommerce options on the network.
Let’s assume that Twitter is randomly testing it on potential SMEs to give them some support during the pandemic. I haven’t heard of anyone else who has seen this new experiment. When I first spotted it, my Twitter app was already updated to the latest version on my Android smartphone.
The new Shopping Card by Twitter even renders in the tweet composer within their Andorid app. Don’t believe me? I’ve embedded the tweet with a screen recording from my Samsung Galaxy S20 FE.
Twitter may have taken a different approach to this, but only time will tell how this new card pans out.
P.S: If you missed out, Twitter has already rolled out government account labels for select Middle East countries.
