Pinterest doubles down on social commerce

There are large indicators that there is major demand for more sophisticated social commerce in the US marketplace already. An obvious example of this is Instagram, which has over one billion users and is now, arguably, one of the world’s largest social shopping platforms. Similarly to Pinduoduo, Instagram has fostered a browsing-based feed from fr... See more

While social media has created opportunities for purchase inspiration similar to a beautifully-merchandised department store window, we’re still in the early days of Instagram Shops. Replicating discovery in the way that people organically find things in-store has so far proved elusive, resulting in fewer opportunities to grow transaction size.

Influencers are the future of discovery-driven, brand-centric commerce. This means that they’re juxtaposed to Amazon and search-driven, brand-agnostic commerce. Picks and shovels like Shopify and Stripe enable influencer commerce.

Instagram remains the most influential and vibrant catalog of visual culture on the planet. Unless it somehow blows the opportunity, it should be able to use that to drive discovery and commerce business over the long run.

- Pinterest is a prime example of a fast growing company that relies on UGC as their main acquisition channel. When a retained Pinterest user creates a new pin and adds descriptive tags, Google indexes the pin. When people search and land on it, this experience introduces new users to Pinterest, and some percentage of those people sign up. Some per... See more

Pinterest introduced the “Shop from Pin” feature in 2020, which gives retailers the ability to include shopping ads for specific, relevant products directly into Pinterest search content and feeds. But these ads currently lead to retailer websites, where transactions take place outside of Pinterests’ purview. PayPal’s ownership would provide the sh... See more

Facebook Shops and Instagram Shops represent a model of e-commerce that more closely aligns with consumers' natural shopping behavior, combining serendipitous discovery and social inspiration.

Instagram’s livestream shopping feature is now over a year old, and beauty brand adoption has become widespread.  On September 19, Instagram concluded its “10+ Days of Live Shopping” campaign featuring a range of consumer brands, including many in the beauty and fashion categories. Beauty participants included one of the first Instagram livest... See more