Twitter is coming for an even bigger piece of the social commerce pie.
The company announced Wednesday that it is introducing a new shopping feature called Product Drops, which will allow merchants to tease and promote new releases directly in the app. Shoppers will see a “Remind Me” button at the bottom of Product Delivery tweets that they can click to activate in-app alerts in their Notifications tab, which appear 15 minutes before and at the moment of falling. Tapping that notification when the release goes live will then pull up a “Buy on Website” button that redirects to the merchant’s website.
Want to learn more about an upcoming product before committing to reminders? Clicking directly on a merchants “Product Drop” tweet will open a full-screen product detail page with a description of the item, a photo, price, and a clickable hashtag that will tell you what other people on Twitter say about him.
Twitter will let you make purchases while watching a live stream
“We’re excited to give shoppers a way to do more than just talk; with Product Drops, we’re making it easier to go from conversation to product discovery to purchase,” explained the product manager of Twitter staffer Justin Hoang in a blog post.
Product Drops is the latest expansion to Twitter’s shopping module — and perhaps the most inevitable, given how essential the app has become for tracking launches and refills. It’s where savvy shoppers go to swap tips on scoring new Telfar bags and adidas x Ivy Park collections, and where eagle-eyed users build a following by tracking down PlayStation 5 stocks and graphics cards (some more legit than others). Adding a native feature that taps into FOMO and our collective desire to be first in line for something new seems like an obvious next step.
Twitter said Product Drops will only appear to US shoppers using Twitter in English on iOS devices “at this time,” adding that it’s currently testing the feature with “select managed partners” like Home Depot(opens in a new tab)Dior(opens in a new tab)and Fossils(opens in a new tab).
