Pinterest is a home for ideas — and when it’s time to work on those ideas, Pinterest will now automatically generate a “shopping list” for you.
On Tuesday, Pinterest launched Shop from a Board, a tab that analyzes your Pins and searches for similar in-stock products. The tool joins a new dedicated shopping tab in search as well as expanded shopping options from individual Pins.
On boards in the home decor and fashion categories, the shop tab will house buyable Pins placed on that board.
But the shop tab will also display products that are visually similar to the original, user-saved Pins, are related to the original inspiration photo, or that could replace a discontinued product.
Using the same object recognition technology that powers Pinterest Lens and features like “Shop Similar,” Pinterest creates a list of similar products, kept separate from the original list of user-saved Pins.
For example, if you’ve been dreaming about remodeling the bathroom for five years but find your original Pins are out-of-stock, the new Shop tab will help find visually similar items. The tool can also work on images of items that were never originally for sale, like inspiration shots of real rooms or real outfits.
Tuesday’s update also brings a dedicated shopping tab to the search tool. The option helps narrow down results when searching for something to purchase, then can narrow that down even further with search filters for price and brand.
The “shop similar” option available from Pins also sees an expansion in the update. The tool can now show more available products from a single Pin, pulling single items out of photos of entire rooms or outfits.
Finally, Pinterest is launching curated style guides for home terms — so when users search for “living room,” guides for the mid-century, contemporary, and rustic looks will pop-up at the top of the search, for example. Tapping the style narrows down the search results to the curated Pins, rather than algorithm-selected results.
Pinterest says that the number of users shopping on Pinterest has jumped by 44% from last year. But, the platform has also seen large jumps in searches in the middle of the global crisis, including three times more searches for “helping small business.” Pinterest says the newest features could help drive more traffic to businesses of all sizes on the platform.
