July 18, 2014: Facebook has started testing a new “buy” button on its website in the United States which will let consumers purchase products that are advertised on its social network. The social media company would initially be testing with a few small and medium sized businesses in the United States and then take it to other countries and bigger businesses. The experts label it as an effort by the Internet Social Networking company to play a bigger role in the e-commerce business and thereby increase its revenues. Facebook has already started earning revenues by the ads that it put on the users timeline.
In a blog post on Thursday Facebook said that “None of the credit or debit card information people share with Facebook when completing a transaction will be shared with other advertisers, and people can select whether or not they’d like to save payment information for future purchases.” This will make the transactions safe and secure. The company further said that its new Buy button will be available on the mobile and desktop PC version of its website. This will allow consumers to purchase goods directly from participating businesses.
Facebook has earlier introduced a way for its users to buy their friends gifts such as socks and teddy bears in 2012 but it stopped its service after a year. According to sources Facebook is not currently taking any portion of the revenue with this feature.
