Pinterest announced last week that it will allow buyable pins that integrate with Shopify store products. Any pin on Pinterest with a blue price can be purchased by Pinterest users directly through a “Buy It” button.
Currently, Shopify is one of only two platforms that lets you take advantage of the new “Buy It” button on Pinterest. Pinterest itself does not charge any type of commission on your products that are purchased directly on the social platform so it is a sales channel that you can start using at no additional cost.
What is Pinterest?
Even if you don’t use it, you probably have heard about Pinterest. It is a social network focussed on visual sharing and bookmarking. Instead of “status updates”, you “pin” items from websites or re-pin items by other users. The pin links you to the website where the item can be found. Pins have an image as a focus along with some descriptive text. You can organize pins into different categories which are called “boards”.
Here’s a brief introductory video that shows how pins work.
Video Credit: Pinterest
Who uses Pinterest?
Mostly women in the United States. 68.2% of all Pinterest users are women. According to a Business Insider report, women are four times as likely to use the platform as men. Pinterest is also a popular platform amongst various age brackets rather than just millennials, or just baby boomers, or others.
This can help your sales, as women make up one of the biggest growth markets globally and in the U.S.
In the U.S., women influence 73% of consumer spending decisions.
Adding your products on Pinterest allows you to tap into a highly engaged, decision-making audience that can boost your sales.
Pinterest + Shopify
If you don’t already use Pinterest to market your products, you should look into it — especially if you have great product images and are active on networks like Instagram. Shopify has some great statistics on how Pinterest drives sales to Shopify stores, including:
- Pinterest leads have the highest average order values of any social network: over $50 per order
- Pinterest is the #2 source of social traffic, only behind Facebook
- 93% of Pinterest users use the platform to plan purchases
Pinterest is a natural fit to sell your products, and you have a huge advantage as a Shopify merchant. You can immediately start selling via Pinterest buyable pins as large stores like Macy’s and Nordstrom do.
How to start selling on Pinterest
Pinterest can not only be a bigger part of your social media strategy, but also a dedicated sales channel, as it natively allows Shopify products to be sold directly without users being redirected to your Shopify storefront.
This may decrease the number of hits your storefront gets through Pinterest, but it reduces the number of steps a potential customer has to take in order to make a purchase. Pinterest buyable pins provide a seamless browsing and buying experience.
You can start using Pinterest as a sales channel on your Shopify store by enabling Pinterest under Sales Channels in Settings. Once your Shopify and Pinterest accounts are linked and Pinterest approves your request, any products that have been pinned from your store will become Pinterest buyable pins.
This will also automatically synchronize orders, products, and customers between Pinterest and your Shopify dashboard, making it very easy to manage any sales via Pinterest, as you don’t have to manage your store and inventory in multiple places.
Once you’re set up on Pinterest, customers will be able to:
- view the product price directly on Pinterest
- select color and size, if available
- click “Buy It” to purchase and checkout directly on Pinterest using Apple Pay, or credit cards through Braintree or Stripe
Once the order is placed, you will receive shipping details and payment just like through any other sales channel.
Read a brief introduction on how to sell on Pinterest on Shopify’s website, and watch the video below to see how buyable pins work on Pinterest:
Video credit: Pinterest
In summary
Pinterest is a product-focused, visual sharing platform that now natively allows Shopify products to be sold directly to its users via Pinterest buyable pins. This is a major step by any social platform and positions Shopify merchants to be the first to tap into the social platform’s user base. Integrating your products is easy to set up and the Pinterest sales channel is enabled at no additional cost.
Have you started using Pinterest’s buyable pins yet? Tell us about your experience either as a consumer or a merchant in the comments below.
Jai Sangha
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