The photo platform Pinterest wants to make more money with online trading. The US company announced on Thursday that there should be personalized shopping offers for users. The idea behind it is something like a “personal concierge” for the shopping spree, said Pinterest manager Philip Missler. Interfaces should make it easier for retailers to integrate their product catalogs with Pinterest. In addition, brands should have access to software tools to identify trends in their areas more quickly based on Pinterest usage.
Pinterest started out as a platform where users could save photos from the web on so-called pinboards on specific topics – for example, when planning a vacation or wanting to redecorate their home. Pinterest now also sees itself as a visual search engine in which software can identify objects. Pinterest uses this, among other things, to make individual objects from the pictures buyable. Other apps such as Snapchat and Facebook’s Instagram also want to become more of a shopping platform.
Shopping personalization will depend, among other things, on what users are specifically looking for – as well as the knowledge that Pinterest has accumulated over time about their tastes and interests. The company also wants to make purchase offers when planning larger events such as a wedding, instead of just collecting ideas, Missler said.
Pinterest was one of the winners of the corona pandemic in 2020: more people took advantage of the lockdown period for the app. But with the removal of the corona restrictions, the number of users fell again. At the end of last year, Pinterest had 431 million active users at least once a month – six percent less than a year earlier. At the same time, sales in the past quarter rose by a fifth year-on-year to $847 million.