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Twitter's adoption of Stripe's new product, Relay, is expected
to help the microblogging site further dabble in e-commerce and
generate revenue through its "buy buttons," which lets shoppers
buy a product and enter payment and shipping information without
leaving Twitter's platform.
Twitter has been struggling to increase its audience and in July
said its number of monthly average users grew at its slowest
pace since it went public in 2013.
"Almost two-thirds of our users say they bought something
specifically because of what they saw on Twitter. ... As mobile
and social (media) continue to grow, consumers are going to
discover and transact right in the apps where they spend their
time every day," Nathan Hubbard, Twitter's head of commerce,
said at a launch event in San Francisco, where both companies
are based.
Stripe, which makes software that helps businesses accept
various types of payments on websites and in apps, counts
grocery-delivery startup Instacart, ride-sharing app Lyft and
e-commerce platform Shopify among its clients.
The payments company's new Relay product functions as a
universal sell button for retailers, allowing companies like
eyewear brand Warby Parker to list products in a single place
and sell them directly on Twitter as well as other e-commerce
platforms like ShopStyle.
A smoother shopping experience is crucial to online retailers as
they often blame the high rates of unfinished or abandoned
online sales on the tiring process of re-entering payment
information.
Stripe's chief executive and co-founder, Patrick Collison, who
was also at the event, likened the common difficulty of
completing purchases through mobile devices to "an obstacle
course," noting that two-thirds of mobile shopping carts are
abandoned before the transaction is completed.
(Editing by Jonathan Oatis)
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