Merchants have a new Twitter feature, called Product Drops, to help engage their followers and stay on top of new product releases.

What are Product Drops. Product Drops from Twitter is a new feature that allows brands to notify their followers when they launch a new product. The feature is the first of its kind for a social media platform.

How does it work. When a merchant tweets about an upcoming launch, followers will see a “Remind me” button at the bottom of the tweet. They’ll simply tap that button to be reminded of the launch day. 

On the product’s launch day, they’ll receive a notification in the app 15 minutes before, and at the time of the drop. Clicking the notification will bring them to the merchant’s website where they can shop for the product and (hopefully) grab it in time. 

The devil is in the details. Before followers click the “Remind me” button they can view the full details of the product that’s dropping. To do this, they’ll just click on the tweet and the Product Details page will open. From there, they can view the price, description, and more. 

Ready. Set. Launch. Twitter is rolling out Product Drops to merchants in the US only, on English iOS devices. It’s being tested with select partners including:

• Dior
• Fossil
• Jeff Staple
• Home Depot

There is no word on when the feature will roll out to all merchants.

What Twitter says. “People come to Twitter to talk about products and product drops every day. And merchants have long been dropping products on Twitter without any native product support. We’re excited to change that and introduce new shopping features that empower shoppers to stay on top of the launches that matter most to them and provide merchants with another way to engage shoppers around big product moments.”

Check it out. Read the full announcement from Twitter here. 

Why we care. Shopping on Twitter isn’t new. But until recently, there hasn’t been any native support surrounding it. This feature aims to help alleviate some of the frustration people feel around missed product drops, angry customers, and overwhelmed brand reps. However, not all of a brands followers are on Twitter. And even if they are, this feature requires they be near their phone or logged into Twitter to receive the notifications. This feature is a good start to increasing brand engagement, but may miss the mark with many of their fans.

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