Twitter unveils its 'buy' button for e-commerce

Online shopping just became a little bit easier.

Twitter announced Monday that it is beginning tests of its "buy" button, which can be embedded into tweets to allow users to easily purchase products. The announcement comes amid fierce e-commerce competition — Facebook unveiled a "buy" button in July.

The New York Times notes that while the "buy" button was "initially aimed at selling limited-edition or time-sensitive items such as T-shirts and event tickets," it could eventually be a steady revenue stream for Twitter, which makes all of its income through advertising.

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Rather than using hashtags to buy items, as Twitter has previously offered with Amazon, users can simply click the "buy" button inside a tweet and enter their payment and shipping information.

"I think of Twitter as the place to connect with the things that you love," Nathan Hubbard, the former chief executive of Ticketmaster who joined Twitter a year ago, told the Times. "How can you bring a transaction into the experience to make it additive?"