Pinterest Extends Its Shopping Features to 7 New Countries

Pinterest extended its shopping features for both merchants and Pinners to seven more countries Wednesday: Austria, Brazil, Italy, Mexico, the Netherlands, Spain and Switzerland. “Over the years, we’ve made it possible to go from Pin to purchase,” Pinterest head of shopping product Dan Lurie told Adweek. “Computer vision and visual search enable Pinners to re-create a look on a body or in a house, and this was designed to enable inspired shopping.” The platform’s shopping push kicked into high gear with the introduction of several features in April 2020, including the addition of shop tabs in its search experience and home décor and fashion boards, as well as updates to its visual search experience. More updates in the U.K. and the U.S. last September brought ads to three of the most highly trafficked and visible places on its platform—its Lens visual search tool, the shop tab in search and shopping on Pins—as well as extending more organic shopping products to the U.S. and giving Pinterest Verified Merchants and Shopify retailers in the U.S. access to conversion insights. Sales Associates Are Evolving to Become the New Rising Stars of Retail Lurie told Adweek, “Lens and visual search really fit in the mid-funnel space where Pinterest tends to play, when people don’t have a specific item or brand in mind.” One month later, storefront profiles were introduced for merchants, and catalogs were incorporated into Pinterest’s collections feature, making it easier and quicker to upload inventory and create ads. And in June, Pinterest’s shopping features were expanded to Australia, Canada, France and Germany, and its Verified Merchant Program came to those four countries and the U.K. Pinterest also rolled out its Shopping List feature at that same time, enabling Pinners to automatically save Product Pins in one place and notifying them if prices dropped on items they had saved. Lurie said of Pinterest’s use of machine learning and feedback from humans, “It’s a cyclical process of improving the output of our recommendation systems via input from our users, who start to feel like Pinterest is a stylist or boutique just for them: 450 million Pinners act as data scientists and help us understand products better.” He also highlighted the platform’s augmented reality try-on tools, which let people virtually sample eye shadow and lipstick, saying that Pinners are five times more likely to show purchase intent on Pins with AR try-on enabled, and the company is working to bring those tools to more verticals. Merchants in the seven countries being onboarded Wednesday will gain access to the Verified Merchant Program, storefronts and a new product tagging tool. And Pinners in those markets will be able to take advantage of a frictionless shopping experience from anywhere on the Pinterest platform, via the shop tab on search, shopping with Lens, curated Shopping Spotlights, shopping directly from boards, product tagging that identifies shoppable products when Pinners close up on a Pin and more details when they close up on Product Pins. “Everything on Pinterest should be shoppable,” Lurie said. “Any Pin can be the starting point for a purchase. Every Pin can be the starting point for a shopping journey.”

Ecommerce News

Pinterest Brings Its Shopping Features to 7 More Countries

Merchants will gain access to the Verified Merchant Program, storefronts and a new product tagging feature

David Cohen

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