By Jillian Ryan on February 4, 2012 in
Just a year ago when I was moving into my first apartment, my cousin sent me an invite to a site she thought could help me shop for my new digs: Pinterest. I will admit: I played around with it, and I just didn't get it; I was overwhelmed by images and I found the interface cluttered. She said I was missing out on something great, and now I'm eating my words, as Pinterest is currently making waves. An infographic from Monetize reveals that Pinterest is referring more traffic to retail sites than Google +, and in the fourth quarter of 2011, its unique visitors increased by more than 400 percent to eight million.
What's all the fuss about?
As a virtual bulletin board, users can "pin" images from across the web to their profile. These pins are organized on "boards" that are classified into topics: from vintage cars to shiny appliances, or home décor ideas to landscapes. When another pinterester finds your pin fascinating, they "repin" it to one of their boards. Pinning can be done from anywhere on the web by simply installing the "Pin it" browser bookmark button.
Named as one of Time Magazine's 50 Best Websites of 2011, Pinterest is currently in testing and users need an invitation to join. To get one: send a request to the site; or as membership explodes, you will probably know at least one person with an account, who can send you an invite.
Following on Pinterest works in a similar function as Twitter; you follow users you find interesting and this will determine what appears on your homepage feed. You don't have to follow all the boards of each user that you follow; you can opt to select the specific boards you want to see.
What does it mean for online shopping?
Brad McCarty of The Next Web says, "It's a social shopping experience, disguised as a website full of interests." He goes further to liken Pinterest as a form of "window shopping" via the web. Users can browse through a never-ending display of items and decide to buy if they wish.
Boards can also be used to organize a shopping experience. As my cousin intended for me, if I was in the market for a couch, I could have scoured Pinterest for styles and colors that I liked and pinned my favorites to a board. After browsing for a while, deciding which couch I wanted would be easier since all of my ideas were in one place. Pinterest's uses, as Rob Lammle of Mashable writes, are varied, "Some people create a Board for each room in the house and then pin decorating ideas for that room... College students might create a shopping list of things they need to buy for school."
But how do you buy with Pinterest? Jill Duffy of PC Mag explains, "Pinterest can serve as the springboard that launches you back to the site where the image was originally found, where you might actually make a purchase." The site even offers a section called "Gifts," where users can sort by price to find products. When pinning an image, users have the opportunity to list them with a price and a link back to the source website.
Semil Shah of TechCrunch believes that consumers who shop via Pinterest are shifting from search mode to discovery mode. He states that users no longer have to rely on Google or Amazon's search function to fuel their transaction, but can now scroll through the images on Pinterest, and discover what they wish to buy through inspiration.
It may have taken me a year, but I get it now. As I sit on my couch in my apartment with a bit of buyer's remorse, I wish I had followed my cousin's advice and made pretty little boards to organize my apartment shopping. Do you use Pinterest? If not, are interested in signing up?