Twitter is reportedly integrating with Shopify and other e-commerce companies to find merchants to support its buy button.
The technology news site ReCode reported the integration, citing unnamed sources, and Twitter did not return a request to confirm the report by deadline. Shopify would not comment.
Shopify provides software to run online stores for about 100,000 merchants, and these merchants would be able to use Shopify's technology to sell goods within tweets.
Social networking and blogging sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest have all experimented with buy buttons over the past few years, though the complexity of building shopping into social networking apps is leading these companies to partner with e-commerce and payments technology providers to quickly build a base of users and overcome technology hurdles.
Shopify, which has a similar integration deal with Facebook, and payments API provider Stripe, which has integration deals Pinterest, Facebook and Twitter, have proven particularly adept at playing the trend to increase their own reach. Square has also gotten in on the act, partnering with photo sharing service Snapchat to support person to person payments.
The use of social networks for payments has grown slowly, though the success of PayPal's Venmo social P2P app has given the business case new life.
