Facebook Introduced “Buy” Button

The social network has placed a “buy” button on adverts for products that would allow its users to pay for them directly from the ads without leaving Facebook.

The “buy” button will be visible from ads on both desktop and mobile app versions of the social network. It will also be seen on product page posts from brands. By clicking on it, the user will be connected directly with the retailer.

Facebook announced that this feature was built with privacy in mind. The company pointed out that it was trying to make the payment experience both safe and secure. As such, none of the credit or debit card information users would be sharing with Facebook when completing a transaction can be shared with other advertisers. In addition, it will be up to users whether or not they’d like to save payment information for future purchases.

The feature is testing now, limited to a few small- and medium-sized businesses in the United States. In the meantime, it is expected to help both advertisers and users. At the moment, when a user clicks on an ad within Facebook for a product he or she wants to buy, the service would send them to an external website. The company launched a store for goods two years ago, but pulled the plug on the venture last year after lack of engagement from users with gift cards of the most popular brands.

Facebook is not the first one to introduce the “buy” button – Twitter has done that earlier in 2014. Now everyone can buy products directly from ads on Twitter, and even Amazon added the ability to put items to a shopping cart directly via tweets three months ago.

Perhaps, testing will expand to the users in the United Kingdom soon as well, but thus far there were no official confirmation from the company.