Twitter Partners With Retailers for 'Buy Now' Button

Twitter Inc said on Wednesday it was partnering with US retailers to help them sell products through a "Buy Now" button in tweets, the latest move by the company to boost flagging user growth.

The "Buy Now" feature, which was initially rolled out to a small percentage of US users last year, allows a customer to buy a product directly from a tweet.

The micro-blogging site said it was working with e-commerce websites such as Bigcommerce, Demandware Inc, and Shopify Inc, and retailers and brands such as Best Buy Co Inc, Adidas AG and PacSun.

Re/code reported on Tuesday that Twitter was building a new product, which would allow users to share tweets longer than its ubiquitous 140 characters.

This comes at a time when Twitter is working overtime to boost user growth, after the company's second-quarter monthly average users grew at the slowest pace since the company went public in 2013.

The company has struggled with direct response ads this year, which are intended to encourage actions such as clicking on a link or downloading an app.

Twitter had already announced plans to allow users to make political donations through tweets with the help of Square, the mobile payment company headed by Twitter's interim Chief Executive Jack Dorsey.

The company has tied up with payment processor Stripe Inc to let shoppers use the "Buy Now" button.

© Thomson Reuters 2015