Pinterest Sets Its Sights on e-Commerce With Product Pins

• Pinterest added multiple tools that will help businesses post product pins on the social media platform.
• Business owners can add product catalogs, product pins and have access to better organization tools to customize their feed.
• The product pins can also be added to the public collections feature to set up digital stores.

Social media platforms are leveraged by businesses globally to generate sales and Pinterest is joining the party as well. The photo-sharing platform has released a number of tools that make selling products easier than ever before. Users can now upload entire catalogs of products to their accounts and set up a digital store in no time. There is also a new dashboard available that you can use to create product pins from catalogs. It not only makes it easy for you to organize your feed but also makes your posts more visible.

Image Courtesy of Engadget

All businesses can post “Shopping Ads” directly from their Pinterest feeds. So, what does it mean if you are a customer? There is added customization for users looking for specific products as well. You can simply head to the “More Ideas” section and select all the product categories that you might be interested in. Once you save your preferences, relevant ads should start appearing on your feed including product listings that you can check out.

Product pins also have their respective brand names listed which you can click on to see other products from the respective brand. If you do not want to see a particular product type you can simply avoid the product category the same way you would avoid topics on Pinterest.

The photo-sharing platform is not new to the e-commerce game by any means. Pinterest launched buyable pins over three years ago, and there have been a number of retail features added over time. Its direct rival Instagram is reported to be working on a standalone retail app which might be released sometime this year to help users purchase products from the photo sharing app.

What do you think about the new e-commerce features on Instagram? Let us know in the comments below. Don’t forget to join our discussions on Facebook and Twitter.