Last week, Facebook announced that it is testing a buy button with small and medium-size retailers on its site. The social media network says it is a “new way for people to discover and buy products,” and that it has “built this feature with privacy in mind, and [we] have taken steps to help make the payment experience safe and secure.”

But will the Facebook buy button be a really new way, or just one other way, for people to buy products? And will users trust that this social media site, which has been rather sneaky about the information it has collected from them in the past, is secure enough to conduct e-commerce?

The retail struggle to leverage social media

Last month, Gallup released a study that found that Americans aren’t moved to buy via social media. Recent moves by Twitter, Facebook, and Pinterest to overcome that resistance remain largely untested for now. 

Pinterest, already focused by its nature on products, seems to be the one social media site with the greatest potential for retailers to interact with its users and sell products. 

Payments are an issue

Facebook has a very real trust problem. A recent poll by the public opinion research project Reason-Rupe, found that just 5% of Americans trust Facebook to protect personal information, behind Google, the IRS, and the NSA.

Add to that Facebook’s own tepid track record with payments. Not to mention CEO Mark Zuckerberg's own comments made just last week that the network will not be a payments company, or sell directly to users. 

What will users do?

The big question that remains is: “What will users do?” Facebook and Twitter want more retail activity on their sites so that they can make money from retailers. But how does that jive with how people use social media?

Current trends indicate that the most likely Facebook shoppers would be those among older generations, like baby boomers or gen X. 

What most users of any generation do like about Facebook is sharing, and that includes sharing information about products. The way Facebook’s algorithms eerily tap into its users’ preferences could bode well for shopping on the site, so long as things don’t get too eery.

Nearly half (47%) of Facebook users say that photos and videos from friends are a major reason they visit the site, 46% say they like sharing things with several people, 39% look for other people’s updates and another 39% like humorous posts, according to research from the Pew Research Center released earlier this year. That study also found that 61% of users take long breaks from the site; 21% because they’re too busy, 10% because they lost interest, and 10% because it was a waste of time.

It’s hard to know if the ability to shop via Facebook would help or hurt those numbers, but Facebook appears determined to be there on all channels. Things are still at "wait and see," but the social network's newfound success on mobile bodes well for its future as a smartphone-based shopping network.