"Buy" Button Makes Shopping Online Easier For Social Media Users

            Online shopping has changed the way consumers buy goods, in that shopping online provides consumers the ability to shop from the comfort of their own homes and have products delivered straight to their front doors.  Shopping online has just become even easier now.  YouTube and Twitter are both introducing a “buy” button on their websites as a new way for marketers to advertise their products.  What this buy button would do is add a link to a video that is displaying a product, which will take the viewer straight to the website where you can purchase the product you are viewing in the video.  Joseph Plambeck in his Daily Report writes, “The new feature seems to be particularly appealing on the many videos of product reviews and tutorials, a type of video that has been growing in popularity on YouTube” (Plambeck).  I believe this is a great business decision for both the YouTube’s and Twitter-like websites, as well as the retailers themselves because it provides consumers with easier access to products, as well as higher traffic to the websites that provide the “buy” button. 

            This “buy” button, or “buy now” as Twitter is calling it, provides a significantly easier path for consumers to purchase their product.  In his article Vindu Goel writes “A store that is a customer of Demandware, Bigcommerce, or Shopify can use the software to tweet out a link to a product that will show up with a buy button” (Goel).  What this means is that any company that is a member of either of these three online retail providers can use the “buy now” button.  They can do this by sending out a Tweet, which, in as few as two taps, provides a link to a product that the company is trying to sell.  This can help increase sales for the company, and increase web traffic for Twitter, making it easy to go between the retailers website, and the social media website.  An example of how YouTube could use this “buy” button is that if a person is doing a tutorial video on say, an iPhone, Apple can use the buy button to allow people to go to a link where they can buy an iPhone directly, removing the step of having to go to Apple’s website, then searching for the phone, and then finally purchasing it.

            The “buy” button is just one new feature that is revolutionizing the way consumers purchase goods online.  It is providing an easier, more convenient way of purchasing the products that they see via multimedia and social networking.  This can only help both the retailers and the social media sits because the easier access can provide for more impulse buys, which increases a company’s profits, ad it also can help bring those consumers back to the social media sites sooner, creating higher traffic on those sites.  The “buy” button is going to be very successful and it will possibly even spawn something even better in the years to come. 

Goel, Vindu. "Twitter Makes 'Buy' Button Widely Available." Bits Twitter Makes Buy

Button Widely Available Comments. NY Times, 30 Sept. 2015. Web. 01 Oct. 2015.

Plambeck, Joseph. "Daily Report: The Buy Button Heads to YouTube and Twitter."

Bits Daily Report The Buy Button Heads to YouTube and Twitter Comments. NY Times, 30 Sept. 2015. Web. 01 Oct. 2015.