Whatever advancements that happen in the US always trickle down here, currently Twitter is said to be working on an e-commerce project powered by Stripe, a web and mobile payments company (not yet in Africa). We still wonder what that social-shopping initiative will look like, but it’s clear that Twitter plus also other social networks may penetrate the retail business.
Late last year Stripe partnered with e-commerce test with Facebook. This service required Facebook users to store their credit card information with the network, for easy purchase of retailers’ apps. As an example, you can use your Facebook login to sign in to men’s retail site JackThreads, and Facebook will populate the empty fields automatically with your information since you already gave it to them. Basically here Facebook is just a shortcut from the long and cumbersome process of signing into your account.
We believe Twitter’s e-commerce project could not be far from what Facebook is doing,
The Trust is still lacking
Most people feel more comfortable making a purchase directly from a product page, like ebay or amazon due to the trust lacking in the security of these social media solutions. It basically feels safer than using a hashtag as shorthand for “buy now.” Pinterest another social network steals the limelight away from Twitter and Facebook as they have managed to turn inspiring images into sales for the social shopping enthusiasts. The aim for Twitter is to enable you to buy stuff from a tweet, but I think it still has a long way convince us that shopping from a social network is truly secure.
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