Pinterest is integrating shoppable pins with visual search, making it easier for users to buy products they’ve taken photos of.
Pinterest’s visual search feature, called Lens, allows users to search for items they’ve captured in a photo with their phone’s camera. Users can also upload existing photos from their camera roll.
Now, Pinterest will start surfacing shoppable pins in visual search results. This could prove to be an effective strategy, as the intent to buy a product is probably high if the user has gone to the lengths of taking a photo of it and searching for it on Pinterest.
Pinterest did some research on the effectiveness of visual search and found:
- 80% of Pinterest users start with visual search when shopping vs. 58% of non-users.
- When shopping online for clothing or furniture, over 85% of users put more importance on visual information than text information.
- 55% of consumers say visual search is instrumental in developing their style and taste.
- 49% of users say they develop a better relationship with brands through visual search.
- 61% of consumers say visual search elevates their experience while in-store browsing.
The integration of shoppable pins with visual search is compatible with fashion and home products. Shoppable product pins link directly to the checkout page on the retailer’s site.
See this help page for more information on how to make your website’s products compatible with shoppable pins.
Other Improvements to Pinterest Visual Search
Pinterest has upgraded its visual search functionality with a new design that makes it easier to take and upload photos.
Users can now save photos they take with the Pinterest Lens camera, which is something that wasn’t possible to do before.
In addition, users can immediate turn photos taken with Lens into a pin and save them to a board.
These features and improvements are rolling out today on Android and coming to iOS in the coming weeks.
