A new feature from Pinterest moves them further in to the mobile commerce space competing with the likes of Amazon and Etsy. Pinterest and their ecommerce partner, Shopify, have introduced ‘buyable pins’.
These allow a visitor to buy a product while viewing an image on the Pinterest iOS app. A ‘buy it’ button appears next to the ‘pin it’ button. Clicking takes the viewer through to a merchant page on Shopify.
As many Pinterest users actively use the platform to get inspiration and recommendations from friends and other users, Pinterest believe this new feature will encourage spending, as buyable pins work in the same way as pins allowing users to re-pin recommendations and purchases harnessing the social power of the platform. The built-in search facility allows users looking for product to add details such as price and description information to ensure finding the goods they are looking for.
Initially the roll out is US and iOS only Pinterest plan to deploy in more countries and operating systems later this year.