Twitter plans move into e-commerce

Twitter is preparing to launch an e-commerce platform that will enable users to purchase goods directly through the site, according to reports.

Plans to introduce the service, called Twitter Commerce, were revealed in documents posted on Fancy.com, one of the Twitter's prospective merchant partners.

The Twitter Commerce service will appear inside users' Twitter stream, similar to promoted tweet advertisements, according to the documents seen by ReCode.

Users will then be asked to enter name, address and credit card details, which are "handled securely within the Twitter app". Customers may also be able to track shipping status on a map.

Transaction costs for merchants using the service were not revealed however.

Twitter declined to comment on documents.

Prior to its IPO last year, Twitter announced that former Ticketmaster CEO Nathan Hubbard had joined to lead its e-commerce strategy. It is hoped that by attracting more commerce to the site it will be able to increase its advertising revenues and provide alternative revenue streams.

The company has dabbled in the sale of goods in the past, but is yet to launch a full ecommerce service. The EarlyBird scheme allowed merchants to promote exclusive deals inside tweets for a period of time. However customers were still required to click through to the advertiser's sites, with the likes of Disney and Virgin America taking up the service.

Twitter also partnered with American Express in 2013, allowing customers to sync their card and account details to enable purchases of a small selection of goods by tweeting a specific hashtag.

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Rival social network Facebook also launched an e-commerce venture in 2012, but was subsequently scrapped due to low user demand.

Facebook recently announced that it was trialling a mobile payments service, allowing users to store credit and debit card details which can be automatically retrieved when purchasing goods.