Changing the Game: Pinterest’s New In-App Buy Button
It’s the greatest news ever! Well, let’s qualify that a bit. It’s the greatest news ever–if you’re a Pinterest junkie, like we are. Just announced: The popular photo sharing site is adding buyable pins, which lets us–and its 3 billion other monthly users– click to buy items right off the site. Think about it. How much time have we all spent admiring a person’s page, wondering where you can get that lamp, couch or design, and then Googling to try and find it? It must take….minutes. We just know it’s exhausting. But with this new button, it’s one click and it’s yours–hassle free.
This has been tried before. Twitter and Facebook added buy buttons to their sites, but to limited success. We think it’s because most people want to share info with their friends, not go shopping. But on Pinterest, it’s all about “borrowing” great ideas from other people, like room designs, recipes and craft ideas. We actually spent some time and Googled this tidbit: 87% of active “Pinners” say they have bought something they saw on Pinterest. That’s about as close to a sure thing as you get. (We’re surprised it took this long to come up with the idea.) The button is set to begin testing later this month, followed shortly thereafter by the demise of our savings account.
