Pinterest Making it Easier to Shop Products in Photos
Pinterest recently announced a new feature that makes it easier for users to buy the items they see on the social network. “Shop the Look” lets users click on individual products in photos so they can buy them or, if they aren’t for sale, see similar items that are for sale on the platform. Brands can tag items themselves, or Pinterest employees will tag them so users can click through to make a purchase. Pinterest also announced a few other updates along with “Shop the Look.” One interesting feature is called Lens — it allows users search Pinterest based on an image they share with the service, sort of like a reverse Google image search.
Total Retail’s Take: “Shop the Look” isn’t a new concept, but it’s new to Pinterest. Instagram rolled out a similar feature to a small group of retailers in November, and other retailers have offered it on their own websites for some time now. Both the “Shop the Look” and Lens updates are intended to make Pinterest more desirable to consumers because the company considers itself a discovery platform rather than a social network. These updates take some of the work out of making a purchase, and may lead to higher conversion numbers for retailers using the platform.
