Update: Pinterest just announced its true buy button with Buyable PIns.
There have been rumors of a Pinterest buy button for quite a while, but they really started to heat up earlier this year. We’ve already seen buy button announcements from Facebook and Twitter, and Pinterest is much more shopping-oriented than either of these, so it would arguably make even more sense for Pinterest to have one.
Well, the rumors are true, though it may be a little more complex than just a simple buy button. The company reportedly showed off mockups of features that would enable Buy, Wish List, and other utility button features to be utilized by developers on Pinterst’s platform at MIT’s Emtech Digital Conference. Josh Constine at TechCrunch reports:
Currently, Pinterest’s partners like big brands pass it pieces of data such as price that are shown on their Pins of products which they hope users will repin. Kendall told me after his session that these partners could soon push more data into the API, which could “enable pretty sophisticated experiences” like multi-product Buy buttons.
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Kendall demoed how a grocery delivery service like Instacart or FreshDirect could integrate a deeplinked Buy button into its recipe pins. When clicked, this “Get Ingredients Delivered” button could instantly open a shopping cart in the Instacart app or site filled with every one of the recipe’s ingredients. With a single tap, you could buy all the ingredients at once, have them delivered, and start cooking what you discovered on Pinterest 45 minutes later.
Pinterest announced its developer platform last month, delivering a suite of APIs aimed at helping developers build apps and integrations that “bring pins to life”. The experiences Constine talks about were basically hinted at in that announcement.
“The Platform will enable developers to tap into the Pinterest interest graph of more than 50 billion projects, places and products to build and grow their apps,” Pinterest said at the time. “With the new APIs, developers will be able to reach millions of Pinners with apps that make Pins actionable and help people take their ideas offline.
“We expect to see a range of apps, including those that re-imagine the education, transportation and vacation planning industries, and more,” a spokesperson said. “Imagine an app for ordering ingredients from a recipe Pin or booking trips based on travel Pins.”
According to the TechCrunch report, Pinterest hasn’t held any talks with potential partners for any of this yet.
According to Shopify, two million people pin product pins every day, which is twenty times more than there are daily shoppers at the Mall of America. 93% of Pinterest users use the platform to plan purchases.
Image via Pinterest