Shop from your Pinterest board with Buyable Pins
You've spent a lot of time collecting those dream dresses on your Pinterest board, but at the end of the day, you still have to actually go to the store to buy them. No longer. Pinterest has just introduced Buyable Pins, which lets you buy items directly from the Pinterest interface. If a pinned item is buyable, you'll see a blue Buy It button right next to the regular red Pin It one. As for what sorts of items? Well, Pinterest already has around 2 million products from retail partners like Macy's, Nordstroms and Neiman Marcus with products that range from clothing to furniture.
You can select what color you want, the number of items you want and sort by price -- just like how you can on a normal web store. As for payment method, you can either enter in your credit card information or use Apple Pay. If you opt for the former, that info goes straight to the payment partner (either Stripe or Braintree) and then to the merchant -- Pinterest says that it doesn't store any of that CC info. In fact, if the item you're buying is super expensive, you'll be prompted to re-enter your password for additional fraud protection. Once you go through the checkout process, you'll get a confirmation process from the retailer that you bought it from, just as if you purchased it on their site.
It's also making Pinterest itself into more of a browsable shopping experience. You can discover products through home feed, guided search and boards just as before, but it's also adding search filters so you can look for stuff based on price and color.
And it's not just big-name retailers that will start selling stuff -- smaller boutiques and individual brands like Ethan Allen and Kate Spade have also joined the party. According to Pinterest, the Buyable Pins are easy to integrate and it's partnered with eCommerce platforms like Shopify and Demandware so that even small businesses can get on board. And that's not all -- it's also not charging any fees for pinners or merchants. That means the product price you see on Pinterest will be the same price you see on that merchant's website.
Pinterest is also really pushing mobile, stating that a lot of its users browse and shop for items on their phones and tablets. Therefore, it's also going to make that a priority, with Buyable Pins starting its rollout on iPhone and iPad later this month -- we're hearing Android and desktop/web support will come in future releases.
[Image credit: Pinterest]
