Pinterest Adds a Series of New Updates to Make the App More of a Shopping Destination

Pinterest is already a destination for style inspiration, but now it's making it easier for brands and consumers to shop on the app. Starting today, retailers can add their entire catalog to Pinterest to create Product Pins on Pinterest as well as make shopping ads available through the self-serve ads manager tool. Users will start to see personalized items based on what they’re saving, shopping results at the top of a search page and a new section for retailers like Room and Board showcasing even more items from brands. In other words, Pinterest is becoming even more of a shopping destination. "The more we’re able to give consumers the path to actually buying the item [that] they just got excited about, the easier it is for retailers to use their current attribution or measurement tools to see that path," said Amy Vener, head of retail strategy at Pinterest. [kickout id="2"] The new features are a plus for brands, considering "pinners" come to the platform looking for a variety of content—without a specific brand in mind, said Andréa Mallard, Pinterest’s CMO, during the Brandweek: Challenger Brands event. By serving more personalized shopping recommendations, one of the new features coming to Pinterest, users can either save items to a board or tap on them to buy directly from a retailer’s website. It’s an area both legacy brands and upstarts can tap into on a variety of levels on Pinterest. "We’re actually creating this ecosystem that allows for a much broader entire path to purchase that is done differently than other platforms so that we can uniquely connect that inspiration," Vener said. [kickout id="3"] Brands are taking note of Pinterest’s capabilities. Levi’s, for example, used the Pinterest API to create personalized boards for users called “Styled by Levi’s,” based on user behavior and a survey. Room and Board, one of the retailers that will have a “more from Room and Board” option at the bottom of a product pin, has used Pinterest since 2012 and has exceeded its return on ad spend goals by 127 percent between February and June 2018. Pinterest isn’t the only platform ramping up shopping. Instagram has taken a series of steps to make it easier for brands and users to buy products, including shopping from videos as well as saving tagged products in stories. CNBC reported in December that Instagram created a tool to let brands know which of their products users save. The Pinterest news comes a week after The Wall Street Journal reported that the company filed for an IPO at a valuation of $12 billion. Pinterest reported in September it has more than 250 million monthly active users and more than 175 billion saved ideas. The Journal further noted the company generated more than $700 million in revenue last year, a 50 percent increase over the previous year. [kickout id="4"]

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Pinterest Adds a Series of New Updates to Make the App More of a Shopping Destination

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