Image: Pinterest
A partnership between the two companies has been extended to 27 more countries, giving 1.7m Shopify merchants access to 450m Pinterest users.
Pinterest and Shopify are expanding their partnership to help more online merchants with “social commerce”. As of this week, retailers in Ireland and 26 other countries can now use the Shopify Pinterest app to help users discover and purchase products online.
Shopify has more than 1.7m merchants on its e-commerce platform globally. As part of the Pinterest partnership, these merchants will be able to bring their products to Pinterest and turn them into discoverable ‘shoppable product pins’.
They can also use a ‘Dynamic Retargeting’ feature, allowing them to re-engage shoppers who had previously shown interest in their products.
Those advertising on Pinterest through Shopify for the first time and who are using a credit card billing will also receive $100 in ad credit. This will be automatically converted to the merchant’s local currency.
Image: Pinterest
Earlier this year, country manager of Pinterest UK and Ireland, Milka Kramer, told Siliconrepublic.com that one of the company’s main goals in 2021 will be to make every pin shoppable.
The platform claims that 83pc of its weekly users have made purchases based on its content, and Kramer explained that 97pc of searches are unbranded.
“This is the magic and serendipity of advertising, when you find a product that you didn’t necessarily know existed but it adds value to your life,” she said at the time. “And I think that this is the unique opportunity that we have on Pinterest.”
Tapping into ‘purchasing power’
In this week’s announcement, Pinterest said its platform can help merchants provide an online shopping experience that recreates being inside a shop, where customers would typically browse aisles and see price comparisons.
“Small and medium businesses in particular have the opportunity to thrive on Pinterest because they connect with consumers in a positive environment when they are early in their decision-making journey and full of purchase intent,” global head of mid-market and small business sales at Pinterest, Bill Watkins, said.
“With the retail ecosystem profoundly evolving over the past year, we’re committed to supporting merchants of all sizes by providing them with quick and easy access to our shopping features without the need to edit code or deploy resources, so they can inspire consumers for what to do or buy next.”
Shopify director of UX, channels and financial services, Lola Oyelayo-Pearson, added that discoverability is “top of mind” for Shopify merchants.
“Social commerce has been a driving factor in helping independent businesses build meaningful audiences, particularly throughout this last year when we saw installs of our social commerce channels grow 76pc,” she added.
“Expanding the Pinterest channel globally will mean that the more than 1.7m merchants using Shopify can tap into the purchasing power of over 450m Pinterest users by building thoughtful, targeted marketing campaigns.”
Shopify has seen strong growth over the last year as the pandemic created a soaring online shopping market. It reported revenue of more than $2.9bn in 2020, an 86pc increase compared to 2019.
