Facebook, Pinterest and Twitter compete for customers This Holiday Season Using the Hit Buy Button

1> Facebook announced its test of the buy buttion in July 2014, but the service remains limited to a small group of merchants. Consumers are more likely to see a button that says "shop now" alongside ads.

The distinction is significant. With the buy button, a user is purchasing a promoted item and the transaction occurs inside the Facebook app, while the shop now feature sends traffic to the advertiser's app or mobile Web site.

People are increasingly discovering products on mobile and Facebook, and businesses are seeing strong results using the carousel format and dynamic product ads to drive sales

Similarly, Facebook's Instagram app recently launched a shop now button letting advertisers customize their promotions within photo streams. J.Crew is running a holiday campaign around its online gift guide.

2> Pinterest waited years before enabling shopping, but now the online bulletin board is moving faster than any of its peers. Michael Yamartino, Pinterest's head of commerce, said the company carefully vets businesses before letting them onto the platform and is very clear with consumers that support and fulfillment are in the hands of the merchant.

Since Pinterest introduced so-called buyable pins in June, more than 10,000 businesses have jumped on board making over 60 million products available for purchase inside the app. Top-selling items include vegan leather leggings, blanket scarves and women's anoraks.

From July to September, online marketplace Madesmith received 7 percent of its total orders from buyable pins, according to data supplied by Pinterest.

3> Commerce has been less of a focus for Twitter. The company has been noticeably distracted by a CEO change and is contending with troublesome user metrics and a plunging stock price. The buy button didn't even come up in the company's latest earnings call.

But in September, a year after launching the feature, Twitter made some headway. The company announced partnership with Shopify, Bigcommerce and Demandware as well as Stripe's Relay service, which makes it easier for retailers to sell across social networks.

For me, this holiday season is more like a test ground for these three companies and would become a good indicator of who would have the best potential to get the most market share in the next few years.

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