Facebook takes on Pinterest’s buyable pins, expands beta test for ‘buy’ button on Shopify

Today, Facebook announced that it is inviting Shopify merchants to a beta test of its ‘buy’ feature. The feature allows users to buy things within Facebook without having to leave to click on another site.

Over the last year, Facebook has been working on a solution for Shopify merchants to advertise and sell their products from within Facebook. The company explains that the ‘buy’ feature will enable consumers to purchase products they discover in their News Feed or on Pages without having to leave Facebook.

Shopify merchants have in fact been posting products with buy buttons but Facebook is now opening it to a variety businesses.

Read more: Pinterest introduces ‘buyable pins’, making it possible to make purchases within the app

Last week we reported the exciting news that Pinterest introduced ‘buyable pins’ to its platform. Though the Facebook’s ‘buy’ feature has been in development for sometime, opening to the public is a direct response to Pinterest’ buyable pins. Compared to Pinterest, the company also has better user base and will reach a wider community.

This move is well in line with Facebook’s strategy of truly living up to its intent to be on its multiple apps and platforms the one stop for everything.

The company says that the buy feature is safe and secure. It also allows consumers to choose to save their payment information with Facebook for future purchases, making purchasing on mobile easier.

Starting today, US based merchants can begin testing the feature. The merchants have been invited to take part in the test and will start to see the invite message show up on the Home screen in their Shopify account over the next few weeks.

Merchants will then have to add the new Facebook sales channel to their Shopify account, and can after that start “posting products with buy buttons, promoting those posts with paid advertising, managing all the customers and orders that come in from Facebook, and more.”