Pinterest makes buying even easier

Another day, another social network makes it easier for consumers to purchase goods without leaving a retailer’s social page.



Pinterest is adding three major new e-commerce platforms and a whole bunch of retailers to its existing “Buyable Pins” feature.



The social network is adding support for Bigcommerce, IBM and Magento (eBay’s e-commerce platform offering) to its Buyable Pins feature. The feature, launched in June with Demandware and Shopify, lets consumers tap the “buy it” button on a pin they like and immediately purchase the displayed item with Apple Pay or credit card. Personal info can be saved to make purchases even faster.



New retailers now selling wares through Buyable Pins include Bloomingdales, Wayfair, DVF, and Steven Alan, as well as thousands of new Shopify merchants. They join retailers including Jo-Ann Fabric, Macy’s, Neiman Marcus, Nordstrom, Michael’s and Gardner’s Supply Company.



Pinterest is expanding Buyable Pins as it reports that there are now more than 60 million products for sale via Buyable Pins, with thousands of retailers selling millions of items since launch about four months ago.



“What you need to power a great discovery service is lots of inventory,” Michael Yamartino, Pinterest’s head of commerce, said during a presentation at the Shop.org conference in Philadelphia. “By getting more merchants and more buyable pins and more products on the platform, we’re able to build smarter and better recommendations and search.”



Pinterest is the third social media network to expand its e-commerce capability in the past week. On Sept. 30, Twitter launched a partnership with e-commerce providers including cloud-based commerce solution vendor Demandware, as well as e-commerce platforms Shopify and Bigcommerce, to offer “Buy Now” functionality. Leveraging tools such as open commerce APIs and configurable product feeds, the integration extends commerce functionality from third-party commerce platforms to tweets.



And on that same day, YouTube released Shopping ads, a new advertising format that lets viewers click and buy products directly from videos. Facebook has been testing a buy button since 2014 Pinterest’s expansion of Buyable Pins is the latest in what is shaping up to be a continuing stream of social media platforms becoming full-fledged retail outlets.



Considering how many consumers now experience the Web from inside a social network or mobile app, retailers need to be sure their online transactional functionality extends beyond the confines of their proprietary e-commerce pages.