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The increased global shift to e-commerce is not going past Pinterest either. The company is expanding the online shopping and advertising options on its platform and introducing a number of new shopping features. For advertisers, merchants and creators to promote their products and help shoppers find what they like.

“People who use Pinterest weekly are 7x more likely to say it’s the most influential platform in their purchase journey, compared to social media platforms. That’s why, as of today, we’re dramatically expanding our suite of shopping solutions for advertisers,” Pinterest said in a blog post.

What’s new? The Pinterest shopping features in detail

Slideshow for collections

© Pinterest

This new feature aims to encourage shoppers to purchase more items at once. As the company notes that “Shoppers on Pinterest have 85% bigger baskets than shoppers on other platforms and they spend twice as much per month.” The Slideshow for collections feature pulls products from merchants’ catalogues and automatically turns them into a ‘collections ad’; video-like content in the form of a slideshow with complementary products that are dynamically selected and personalised to the Pinterest user.

Merchant details

© Pinterest

“Shoppers on Pinterest don’t just fall in love with products – they fall in love with brands. In fact, 7 in 10 Pinners say that Pinterest is where they go to find new products, ideas or services they can trust,” says Pinterest. Merchant details lets brands display their brand values directly on their profile and helps them build a stronger connection between the brand and Pinners. In addition, Pinterest is expanding its Verified Merchant Program to more countries.

Idea Ads with paid partnership

© Pinterest

Idea Ads are a new ad format that works as a collaborative partnership between content creators and advertisers. “The creator makes an Idea Pin, and tags a brand partner. From there, the advertiser can promote the Idea Pin as an Idea Ad,” according to Pinterest. The feature should help both businesses and creators to reach more users on the platform. The Idea Ads feature is currently being tested with selected creators and brands in 15 countries.

The new Pinterest shopping features do not come as a surprise. Pinterest has always positioned itself as a source of inspiration that can ultimately lead to online purchases. And Pinterest isn’t the only social media platform competing for the e-commerce market. In the past few months, Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, TikTok and others have already introduced various online shopping options of their own. The social commerce market is and will remain exciting.