Facebook and Twitter’s e-commerce ventures aren’t very successful

Many social networks have been dipping their toes into the e-commerce market with Buy buttons in recent months, but if this year’s holiday season is any indication, consumers aren’t all that interested. Facebook and Twitter have been leading the charge in merging e-commerce and social media, but neither of them have done much more than test the waters, and the lack of effort is reflected in poor sales this holiday season.

More than a year after Twitter and Facebook began placing Buy buttons on their social networks, their e-commerce initiatives still appear to be relegated to experimental side projects. And at Pinterest, the tech platform that many believe is most conducive to e-commerce, one of its mainstream launch partners is seeing fewer than 10 purchases a day via so-called Buyable Pins. The lack of aggressiveness on the part of Facebook and Twitter, and tepid early results at Pinterest, highlight the myriad challenges all three platforms face in transforming their immense user bases into shoppers. The sluggishness of the combined efforts also serves as a warning to other industry players betting big on the idea of social commerce that it’s still unclear if consumers will make purchases in big numbers on platforms that aren’t mainly retail destinations. Spokespeople for the three companies declined to disclose sales numbers for these initiatives.