E-Commerce Gets Social: Facebook Is Testing A Buy Button In Ads And Page Posts

In another move to blend social media with ecommerce, Facebook announced today that is testing a Buy button that will enable users to purchase products from businesses without leaving the social network.

The button, which is being tested with a few small- and medium-sized businesses in the United States, can be placed in either Facebook ads or Page posts.

Here’s how the test unit looks:

Clicking the Buy button launches the user into a buying process that Facebook was built “with privacy in mind.”

“None of the credit or debit card information people share with Facebook when completing a transaction will be shared with other advertisers,” Facebook wrote in a blog post, “and people can select whether or not they’d like to save payment information for future purchases.

Last week, Facebook gave game developers the ability to sell virtual goods within ads.

Today’s move into the real ecommerce world is similar to Twitter’s Buy Now button that briefly surfaced earlier this month. A major difference here is that Facebook announced the move. Twitter has had no comment.