JUST RELEASED: The State Of The “Buy Button”

The Curious Case Of Buy Buttons

Twenty-two years into their existence, buy buttons have swept their way into all corners of the internet. But now, with a glut of them available to merchants and consumers, are they consummating or just complicating purchases?

To find out, PYMNTS set out to track the growing presence of buy buttons and how they are driving sales for 1,045 merchants in the latest Buy Button Report. We gauged the presence of nine major buy buttons across 18 different merchant categories and their share of spend, then tracked where they are helping and where they are reducing or adding friction to the shopping process.

There has been growing acceptance of the feature across all industries since PYMNTS first took stock of the state of buy buttons in October 2016.

Merchants in the apparel-accessories and the ticketing industries, for example, have largely embraced buy buttons, with 80 percent of them offering at least one option. However, there’s less robust acceptance among merchants in the travel and hospitality sector, with only 24 percent accepting digital wallets.

Among the buy button providers, PayPal’s two-tone blue button came out on top with about 68.6 percent of merchants displaying it. Amazon comes in second, with 10 percent of merchants offering its buy button to their shoppers.

Payment card networks, on the other hand, struggled to gain significant growth in terms of penetration. Further behind them are digital wallets by Apple, Google and Samsung which, despite their extensive marketing efforts, have barely registered a blip in the buy button landscape.

Other key takeaways include:

– 18.5 percent of the top 1,045 online merchants accept more than one buy button.

– Buy buttons are most pervasive in the jewelry industry with 92.1 percent of merchants offering at least one buy button on their platforms.

– Q2 2017 saw a 10 percent increase in merchants accepting three or more buy buttons, since our October 2016 analysis.

– 32 percent of large-size merchants accept two or more buy buttons.

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To download the Buy Button Report, click the button below:

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About The Report

The PYMNTS.com Buy Button Report is designed to detail the state of play regarding buy buttons online. We examined the top 1,045 online merchants’ websites and observed patterns of buy buttons with type and size of merchant, average online sales and the opportunity to drive conversion and sales. We also analyzed the data, delving into the strategic intent of the players for approaching the merchants on which their buy buttons sit.